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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar seemed like another intensification that drove the hope of peace further away.

This strike on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

This is a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

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

The president's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under international law.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump directed American aircraft to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the room to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's envoy, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump displayed a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation publicly in order to enable it to moderate the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, while Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

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

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu personally called Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

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

The group will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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