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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that drove the hope of peace further away.

The attack on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

This is a goal that he, and Joe Biden previously, had sought 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 negotiated.

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

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have given the president the room to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of some hostages.

When Israel attacked against Syria's military in July, even bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" held that the US had to support Israel publicly in order to enable it to influence the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, led Trump to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have told media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, the president was present close as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to do with some success."

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

Now Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal