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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another intensification that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

The attack on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

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

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

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

However, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, 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 Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.

After Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered US bombers to target the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump'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 a number of captives.

When Israel attacked against Syria's military in July, including bombing a Christian church, the US president pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was consistently more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions in private.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. He provided US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister personally called Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming Trump's relationship with his counterpart gave him the room to influence Israel to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and he appears to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that he employed to his benefit, he adds.

Currently Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians 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 original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal