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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that drove the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an US partner and risked widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

But if this agreement 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 crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

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

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

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

When Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader directed American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of some hostages.

When Israel attacked against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to an analyst 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 always more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" held that the United States had to support Israel publicly in order to enable it to moderate the country's military actions in private.

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

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted the president 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. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

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

His visits devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister himself called Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure the government to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. 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 earlier administrations have faced, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that he employed to his advantage, he adds.

Currently Israel has agreed to freeing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal