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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of peace out of reach.

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

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

But if this deal stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under global norms.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, the US leader directed American aircraft to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of support may have allowed the president the room to exert more pressure on Israel in private. As per sources, Trump's envoy, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a level of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He 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 stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat close as Netanyahu personally called the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If Trump's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them persuade the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to do with some success."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu personally was leverage that Trump used to his advantage, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal