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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 peace further away.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a objective that he, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

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

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

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, Trump directed US bombers to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the room to exert more pressure on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's envoy, his representative, pressured 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 Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, Trump pressured his counterpart to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to moderate the country's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister himself called Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to influence the government to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

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

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