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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 a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

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

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

But if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

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

Trump likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of support may have allowed the president the room to apply more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

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

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties 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 the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president lent American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have told the press that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to apply full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat close as Netanyahu personally phoned Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming the president's alliance with his counterpart provided him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

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

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump appears to do with some success."

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

Currently Israel has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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