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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of peace further away.

This strike on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

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

This is a objective that he, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

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

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this success.

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

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

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been matched by actions.

During his initial time in office, Trump moved the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump directed US bombers to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more influence on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in July, even hitting a Christian church, Trump urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree of determination 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 literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was consistently more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to embrace Israel publicly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took risked dividing his own domestic support, while his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an attack on Qatar soil 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 the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. This year, he also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, the president sat close as Netanyahu himself called Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with his counterpart provided him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump gained influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he 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, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

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