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

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

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

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

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

But if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this success.

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

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these warm words have been matched by deeds.

During his initial time in office, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader directed US bombers to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have allowed Trump the room to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, even bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "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 consistently more strained.

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

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, led the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in the territory. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

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

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, the president was present nearby as Netanyahu personally called the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that he 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 agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal