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

This strike on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

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

This is a goal that Trump, 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 disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

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

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

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump moved the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered US bombers to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of backing may have given the president the leeway to apply more influence on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to support Israel openly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during his term, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where he heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, Trump sat close as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that many previous presidents have faced, and he appears to do with some success."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that Trump used to his advantage, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

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

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