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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar seemed like another intensification that pushed the hope of a ceasefire further away.

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

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

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

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

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

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, the US leader directed American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the room to exert more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of some hostages.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in July, even hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

His administration's "bear hug approach" held that the United States had to embrace Israel publicly in order to allow it to moderate the country's military actions in private.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led the president to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an attack on Qatar soil 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 media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump 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.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

If Trump's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"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 faced, and he seems to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, living and dead, captured during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

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