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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

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

This is a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

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

Trump's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this success.

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

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.

When Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump directed American aircraft to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of support may have given the president the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu 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 Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, even hitting a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

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 war conduct in private.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

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

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

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

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured in the initial October 7 assault, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of the territory and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal