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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like another escalation that drove the prospect of peace further away.

The attack on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

That represents a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal 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 eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

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

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under international law.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader ordered US bombers to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was always more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own domestic support, while his successor'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, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. However an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat close as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that Trump employed to his benefit, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned 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 original 7 October assault, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

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