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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of a ceasefire further away.

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

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

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

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

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

Trump's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say 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". 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 Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump directed US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given the president the room to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, pressured 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 Christian church, Trump urged Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was consistently more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to support Israel publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took risked fracturing his own domestic support, while Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu himself called Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," 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 not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was an advantage that Trump employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has agreed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal