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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar appeared like another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

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

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

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this success.

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

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

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

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

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, the US leader ordered American aircraft to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have allowed Trump the room to apply more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even hitting a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president sat close as the prime minister personally phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's alliance with his counterpart provided him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have faced, and he seems to handle with some success."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu himself was leverage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

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

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