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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like another intensification that drove the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an American ally and risked widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

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

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

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

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this success.

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

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

During his first presidential term, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of support may have given Trump the room to apply more pressure on the Israeli government 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 attacked against Syria's military in July, including hitting a place of worship, Trump urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says 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."

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

His administration's "close embrace strategy" held that the US had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling 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, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of 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 significant latitude in the territory. He lent American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu personally called Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's alliance with his counterpart provided him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them persuade Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened 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. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have faced, and he appears to handle with some success."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that he employed to his benefit, he adds.

Currently Israel has agreed to releasing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of the territory and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal