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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another intensification that pushed the hope of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an American ally and risked widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a objective that he, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

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

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this success.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these warm words have been backed up by actions.

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

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, Trump directed US bombers to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of backing may have given Trump the room to apply more pressure on Israel in private. As per sources, Trump's envoy, 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.

When Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader displayed a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "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 Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace approach" held that the US had to support Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took endangered fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, the president was present nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

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

Now Israel has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the original 7 October assault, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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