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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of peace further away.

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

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a goal that he, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

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

The president's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

However, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

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

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to support Israel openly in order to allow it to moderate the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took risked fracturing his own domestic support, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

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

Business History Assisted Gain 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, led the president to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump was present close as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and assisted them persuade Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to do with some success."

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

Currently Israel has committed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured in the initial October 7 assault, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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