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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another intensification that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

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

This is a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

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

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

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

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

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.

When Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered US bombers to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of backing may have given the president the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, 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."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the US had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took endangered fracturing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

Trump had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. 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 Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to change his thinking, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where he heard repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president was present nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

If Trump's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he appears to handle with some success."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that Trump used to his advantage, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the war, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal