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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

The attack on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened widening the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

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

This is a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement stands, 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 crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

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

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 actions.

During his first presidential term, the president relocated the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, the US leader ordered US bombers to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the room to exert more influence on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

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

The leader displayed a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to embrace the nation publicly in order to allow it to moderate the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

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

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have informed the press that this was a turning point which motivated the president to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

If Trump's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and assisted them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister himself was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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