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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar appeared like another escalation that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

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

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

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the control of either man.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been matched by deeds.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump directed American aircraft to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was consistently more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" held that the United States had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

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

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where he heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat close as the prime minister personally called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and helped them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage 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 do this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, 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 conflict, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal