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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another intensification that pushed the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

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

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

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

That represents a objective that he, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

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

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

Trump's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, the US leader ordered US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of support may have given Trump the room to exert more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in July, including bombing a place of worship, Trump urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

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

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

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a turning point which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump gained influence 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 achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu personally was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons 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 Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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