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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar appeared like another intensification that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

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

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

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

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

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

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this success.

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

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

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

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump ordered US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the room to apply more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to act.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, led Trump to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

Trump had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. The president lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit the country on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where he heard repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming the president's alliance with his counterpart provided him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst 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 demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that many 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 employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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