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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of peace out of reach.

The attack on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an American ally and risked widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

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

This is a goal that he, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

But if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

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

Trump likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been matched by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the room to apply more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in July, even bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured his counterpart to change course.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was always more strained.

His administration's "close embrace approach" held that the United States had to support Israel publicly in order to enable it to influence the nation's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its major strategy objectives 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 not the intended targets, led the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a significant latitude in the territory. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

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

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump was present close as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," 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 challenge that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to do with some success."

The reality that the president is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that he used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal