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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another intensification that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

The attack on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

When Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the leeway to exert more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, the US president pressured his counterpart to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, during his term, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat close as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to handle with some success."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal