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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an US partner and risked expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

But if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

Trump's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this success.

However, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

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

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories 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 directed US bombers to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the leeway to exert more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syria's military in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to change course.

Trump exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the country's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to do with some success."

The fact that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu himself was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Currently Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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