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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

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

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

This is a objective that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

But if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

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

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

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

The president often states that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel in private. As per sources, the president's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a level of determination 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 directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

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

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

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

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

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

Assuming Trump's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence with the Israelis, and indirectly 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 avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

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

Currently Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of the territory and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal