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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another escalation that drove the prospect of peace out of reach.

The attack on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

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

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

But if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

However, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

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

Trump often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the leeway to exert more influence on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to support Israel publicly in order to allow it to moderate the country's military actions in private.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, while Trump's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to act.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led Trump to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, 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 shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where he received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president was present close as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with his counterpart provided him the ability to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage 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 timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

The reality that the president is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister himself was an advantage that Trump employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

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

Hamas will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October assault, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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