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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an US partner and risked widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

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

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

This marks 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 negotiated.

But if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president'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 many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under international law.

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

These public demonstrations of backing may have allowed Trump the room to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" held that the United States had to support Israel publicly in order to enable it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit the country on this regional tour but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, the president sat close as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them persuade Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," says an analyst of the a research center.

"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 challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he seems to do with some success."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he employed to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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