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At first, Israel's 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 violated the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

But if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

Trump's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

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

Trump likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

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

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, the US leader directed American aircraft to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. 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 freeing of some hostages.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader displayed a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took endangered fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during his term, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president sat close as the prime minister personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If Trump's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to influence Israel to strike a deal, his history 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 developed influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump appears to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he employed to his benefit, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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