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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar appeared like another escalation that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

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

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

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

This is a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

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

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

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this success.

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

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

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of support may have allowed Trump the room to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of some hostages.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to support Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to act.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

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

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in the territory. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have told media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence Israel to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. 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 struggled with, and Trump appears to do with some success."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was an advantage that he used to his advantage, he adds.

Currently Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

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

A conclusion to the war, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal