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

This strike on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

This is a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

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

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

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

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

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under international law.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, the US leader ordered US bombers to strike the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's envoy, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israel attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

His administration's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to allow it to moderate the country's military actions in private.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, 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 stop.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat close 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 key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that many earlier administrations have faced, and Trump appears to do with some success."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October assault, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal