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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another intensification that pushed the prospect of peace further away.

This strike on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

But if this deal holds, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

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

During his initial time in office, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump directed US bombers to target the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of backing may have given the president the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even hitting a place of worship, Trump urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to 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 relationship with the Israeli administration was always more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel publicly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to act.

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

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit the country on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

The fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that Trump used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has committed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of the territory and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal