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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar seemed like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a goal that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

But if this deal stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

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

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump ordered US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the room to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

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

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the UAE, 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 Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he heard repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump was present close as Netanyahu personally phoned 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 relationship with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and helped them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and he appears to handle with some success."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu personally was leverage that he used to his benefit, he adds.

Currently Israel has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, living and dead, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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