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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar seemed like another escalation that drove the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an American ally and risked widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

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

That represents a objective that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

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

But if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

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

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these warm words have been backed up by actions.

During his initial time in office, the president moved 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 Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

When Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered US bombers to target the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of backing may have given Trump the room to exert more influence on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, even hitting a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller 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 connection with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

His administration's "bear hug strategy" held that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

The fact that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that he used to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has agreed to releasing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has led to the devastation of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal