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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

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

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

That represents a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

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

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this success.

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

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in July, even bombing a Christian church, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was consistently more tenuous.

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

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout his term, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

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

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, pushing 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 decisive moment which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit the country on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu himself called Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming Trump's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to influence Israel to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers 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 Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and he appears to do with some success."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister personally was an advantage that Trump used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has committed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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