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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another intensification that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

The attack on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

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

This is a goal 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 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 defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

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 described him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under global norms.

After Israel began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the room to apply more influence on Israel in private. According to reports, Trump's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the release of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a place of worship, the US president urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

His administration's "close embrace approach" held that the US had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given Israel a significant latitude in the territory. The president lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, the president was present nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that Trump employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal