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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar appeared like yet another intensification that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

The attack on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

This is a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

But if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these warm words have been matched by deeds.

During his initial time in office, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, the US leader directed American aircraft to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, even hitting a Christian church, Trump urged Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "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 connection with the Israeli administration was consistently more strained.

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel publicly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, while Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations 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 apply full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

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

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump sat close as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to do with some success."

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

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

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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