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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another intensification that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

This strike on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and risked expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

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

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

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement 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 Arab world seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

But, as with many 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 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated 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 against international law, the view under international law.

After Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, the US leader ordered US bombers to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the room to exert more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even bombing a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump exhibited a level of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the United States had to support Israel publicly in order to allow it to moderate the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions 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 provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to issue an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have told media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

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

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," says an analyst 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 faced, and he seems to handle with some success."

The reality that the president is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal