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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another escalation that drove the hope of peace further away.

The attack on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an US partner and risked expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

But if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump often states that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these warm words have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, the US leader ordered US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the room to exert more influence on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took endangered fracturing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in the territory. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he heard repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, the president sat close as Netanyahu personally called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming the president's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the ability to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal