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

The attack on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

This is a goal that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

Yet if this deal stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

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

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these warm words have been backed up by actions.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed US bombers to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in July, even bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

Trump exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, while Trump's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. He lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

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

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst 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 combatants has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to do with some success."

The reality that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has led to the devastation of the territory and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal