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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar appeared like another escalation that pushed the hope of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

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

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

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

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

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

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his initial time in office, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.

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

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the room to exert more influence on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to embrace Israel publicly in order to enable it to moderate the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to act.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, led the president to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president 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 normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump was present close as Netanyahu personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and he appears to handle relatively successfully."

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

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

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