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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like another escalation that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

The attack on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

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

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

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

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

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

The president often states that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

During his first presidential term, Trump moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered US bombers to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given the president the room to apply more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even bombing a place of worship, Trump urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own political backing, while Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during his term, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. He lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

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

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he heard repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, 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 region.

If Trump's alliance with his counterpart provided him the room to influence the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and assisted them convince Hamas to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to do with some success."

The fact that the president is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that he used to his advantage, he adds.

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

Hamas will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of the territory and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal