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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar appeared like another escalation that pushed the prospect of peace further away.

This strike on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

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

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this success.

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

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

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

Trump often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by actions.

During his initial time in office, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

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 largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of support may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, the US president pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to support Israel publicly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led the president to issue an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have told 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 Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat close as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval 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 his counterpart gave him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle 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 advantage, the expert continues.

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

The group will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal