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

This strike on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

That represents a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this success.

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

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

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

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

During his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the room to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, Trump urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump displayed a level of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" argued that the US had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the country's military actions in private.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to act.

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 unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have told media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump sat close as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to do with some success."

The reality that the president is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister himself was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

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

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