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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas delegation in Qatar seemed like another intensification that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

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 objective that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, 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 second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this success.

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

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed US bombers to target the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of support may have given the president the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's envoy, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led Trump to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

The US leader had allowed Israel a significant latitude in the territory. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister personally phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was an advantage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused 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