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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another intensification that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened widening the conflict 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 President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

Yet if this deal 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 key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

However, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been matched by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.

After Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump ordered US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the room to exert more influence on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in July, including bombing a place of worship, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader 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 you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug strategy" argued that the US had to support Israel openly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's military actions in private.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own domestic support, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have told the press that this was a turning point which motivated the president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where he heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, the president sat close as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade Hamas to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that many previous presidents have faced, and he seems to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that he employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group 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 Israelis.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal