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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like another intensification that pushed the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

This is a goal that he, and President 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, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

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

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this success.

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the control of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his first presidential term, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under international law.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, the US leader directed American aircraft to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of backing may have allowed Trump the room to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to embrace the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have informed 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 widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms 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 Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump was present close as Netanyahu himself phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister himself was leverage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to releasing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of the territory and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal