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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

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

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

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

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

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

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

Trump often states that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of some hostages.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in July, even bombing a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a level of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

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

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, led the president to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump was present close as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and helped them convince the group to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that many earlier administrations have faced, and he seems to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu personally was leverage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

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

Hamas will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal