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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another intensification that drove the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

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

This is a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

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

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

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister 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" held that the US had to support Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own political backing, while Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain 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 the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have informed the press that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped shift his perspective, says 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 consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president was present nearby as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence Israel to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that many previous presidents have struggled with, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump 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 committed to releasing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

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

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