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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another intensification that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

This is a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

But if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by actions.

During his initial time in office, Trump moved the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under global norms.

After Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, the US president pressured his counterpart to change course.

Trump displayed a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was always more strained.

His administration's "bear hug strategy" held that the US had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit the country on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president was present nearby as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

The fact that the president is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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