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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar appeared like another escalation that drove the prospect of peace out of reach.

This strike on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

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

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this success.

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

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

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

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under international law.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed US bombers to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the room to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

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

Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was consistently more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

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

His visits he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says 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 Qatar where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump 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 he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand 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, captured in the initial October 7 assault, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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