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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another intensification that drove the hope of peace further away.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

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

That represents a goal that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his administration.

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

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, Trump directed US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed Trump the room to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, even hitting 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, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the US had to embrace the nation publicly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations 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 leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, the president sat close as Netanyahu himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he seems to do relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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