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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

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

That represents a objective that he, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

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

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

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this success.

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

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

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

Trump likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these warm words have been backed up by actions.

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 against international law, the position under international law.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign 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.

These visible shows of support may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in July, including bombing a Christian church, Trump urged his counterpart to change course.

The leader displayed a degree 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 American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace approach" held that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, while Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during his term, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in the territory. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where he heard repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu himself called Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming Trump's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he seems to do with some success."

The fact that the president is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu personally was leverage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to releasing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the war, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal