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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like another intensification that pushed the prospect of peace further away.

The attack on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an American ally and risked widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

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

This is a goal that he, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

But if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

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

Trump often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". 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 Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump directed American aircraft to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given the president the leeway to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syria's military in July, including hitting a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility 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 not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have told the press that this was a turning point which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's 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 first term.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with his counterpart gave him the ability to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many earlier administrations have faced, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu personally was leverage that he employed to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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