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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another intensification that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened widening the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

This is a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

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

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the control of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in the country from its former location 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, Trump ordered US bombers to target the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given the president the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, the president's envoy, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even bombing a place of worship, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was always more strained.

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he heard repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to do with some success."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal