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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

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

This is a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this success.

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

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered US bombers to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the room to exert more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. 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 attacked against Syrian forces in July, even hitting a place of worship, Trump urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during his term, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat close as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to agree to the deal.

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

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that many previous presidents have faced, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

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

Now the Israeli government has agreed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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