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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas delegation in Qatar seemed like another escalation that drove the hope of peace further away.

The attack on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and risked expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

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

That represents a objective that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

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

The president's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

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

The president likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of backing may have given the president the room to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "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 consistently more strained.

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

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact 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 the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Secure 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 ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position 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 leader to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump was present close as Netanyahu himself called Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and helped them convince the group to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and he appears to do with some success."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that he employed to his advantage, he adds.

Now Israel has agreed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of the territory and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal