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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like another escalation 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 broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

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

This is 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 details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

But if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his administration.

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the room to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a place of worship, the US president urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

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

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza 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 local national but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, he also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump was present close as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he seems to do relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that he employed to his benefit, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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