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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar seemed like yet another intensification that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

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

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

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

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

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

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

Trump likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump directed American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given the president the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even hitting a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and pressure 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 they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during his term, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

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 Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president was present close as Netanyahu personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader 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 the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader developed influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to handle relatively successfully."

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

Now the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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