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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of peace further away.

This strike on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

That represents a objective that he, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

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

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the control of either man.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

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

Trump often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the room to apply more pressure on Israel in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to moderate the country's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

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

Several 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 major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led the president to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. He lent American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement 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 a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister himself called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence Israel to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and he seems to do with some success."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump used to his advantage, he adds.

Currently Israel has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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