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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a goal that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Biden and his administration.

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

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, Trump directed American aircraft to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed Trump the room to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of some hostages.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" argued that the US had to embrace the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions in private.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president was present close as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and assisted them persuade Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

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

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to handle with some success."

The reality that the president is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu personally was leverage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now Israel has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal