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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like another intensification that drove the prospect of peace out of reach.

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

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, 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 full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

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

Trump's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this success.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader 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, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under global norms.

When Israel began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" held that the US had to embrace Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, while Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. He lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president was present nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to handle with some success."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal