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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked widening the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

That represents a objective that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

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

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

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

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

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

Trump likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president relocated the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed Trump the room to apply more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's envoy, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, Trump urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump displayed a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was consistently more strained.

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" argued that the US had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, while Trump's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat close as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

If Trump's alliance with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many earlier administrations have faced, and he seems to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that the president 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 freeing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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