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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

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

That represents a objective that he, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump often states that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his initial time in office, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the room to apply more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel attacked against Syria's military in July, even hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a level of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader 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 strategy" held that the United States had to embrace the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence 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 Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, while his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat close as Netanyahu personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and helped them convince the group to commit to the deal.

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

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to do with some success."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister himself was an advantage that Trump used to his advantage, he adds.

Now Israel has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, living and dead, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal