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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another escalation that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

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

This is a objective that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

But if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement 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 seem to have played a role in this success.

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

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

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

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.

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

Those public demonstrations of support may have given the president the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

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

The leader exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says 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."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" held that the US had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu personally called the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to influence Israel to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them convince Hamas to agree to the deal.

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

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

The reality that the president is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister himself was leverage that he used to his advantage, he adds.

Currently Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

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