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

This strike on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an American ally 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 has led in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

This is a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

Yet if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment 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 seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

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

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of some hostages.

After Israel attacked against Syria's military in July, including bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the US had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the country's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to issue an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply full force 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. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the ability to influence Israel to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, 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 Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have faced, and he appears to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister himself was an advantage that he used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the original 7 October assault, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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