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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar appeared like another escalation that drove the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

This is 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, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

Yet if this deal stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that eluded Biden and his administration.

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

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

In public, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, including bombing a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was always more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the country's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

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

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, led Trump to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where he received consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, the president was present close as the prime minister personally called Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence Israel to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and helped them convince the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump gained influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was an advantage that Trump employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

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

The group will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the war, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal