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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another intensification that pushed the hope of a ceasefire further away.

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

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

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

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this success.

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

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

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump directed American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed Trump the room to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even hitting a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" held that the US had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

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

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

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. The war had to stop.

Trump had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," says an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to do with some success."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal