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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

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

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

The president's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

During his initial time in office, the president moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance 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, Trump directed US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed Trump the room to exert more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, the US president urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to support Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. 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 normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where he heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu personally called Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the room to influence Israel to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to do with some success."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister himself was an advantage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

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

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal