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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like another intensification that drove the prospect of peace further away.

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

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

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

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump moved the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under global norms.

After Israel began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, Trump directed American aircraft to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of support may have allowed Trump the leeway to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, the US president pressured his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace strategy" held that the United States had to support Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered fracturing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Helped Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president was present close as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that he employed to his advantage, he adds.

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

The group will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured during the original 7 October assault, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has resulted in the devastation of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal