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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas delegation in Qatar seemed like another escalation that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

The attack on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

That represents a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

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

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the control of either man.

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

In public, Donald 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 called 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 moved the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed Trump the leeway to exert more influence on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, even hitting a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace strategy" held that the United States had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to influence the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in the territory. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, 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 decisive moment which galvanised the leader to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where he heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump was present close as the prime minister personally phoned Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them persuade Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained 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 do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and he appears to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu personally was leverage that Trump used to his advantage, the expert continues.

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

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal