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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another intensification that pushed the prospect of peace further away.

The attack on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

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

That represents a goal that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

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

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

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

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

Trump often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu 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, the president moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed American aircraft to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of support may have allowed Trump the room to apply more influence on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was consistently more strained.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" held that the United States had to support Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to act.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, led the president to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to end.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have told the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that many previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was an advantage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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