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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

This strike on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

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

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

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

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

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

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under international law.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump ordered US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of backing may have given Trump the room to apply more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of some hostages.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

The leader displayed a degree of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was always more tenuous.

His administration's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to act.

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

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president was present nearby as the prime minister personally called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader 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 region.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump appears 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 employed to his benefit, he adds.

Currently Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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