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

The attack on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

That represents a goal that he, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

During his first presidential term, Trump moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the room to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

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

The leader exhibited a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" held that the US had to support Israel publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, 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, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel 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, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have informed the press that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister personally called Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

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

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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