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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another intensification that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

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

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

It is 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 signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this success.

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the control of either man.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

When Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of support may have given Trump the room to exert more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, Trump's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in July, including hitting a place of worship, Trump urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of will and pressure 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 American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was always more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to support Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to exert full force 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 United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he heard repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister personally phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to handle relatively successfully."

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

Now the Israeli government has agreed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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