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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like another escalation that pushed the hope of peace further away.

The attack on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a goal that he, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this success.

However, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been matched by actions.

During his initial time in office, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission 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 position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader directed American aircraft to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the room to exert more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even hitting a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a level of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the country's military actions in private.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him closer to 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 decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

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

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president sat close as Netanyahu personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have faced, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu himself was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Now Israel has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October assault, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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