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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Qatar seemed like another escalation that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

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

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

Yet if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that eluded Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

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

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under global norms.

When Israel began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, Trump ordered US bombers to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of support may have given Trump the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel in private. As per sources, the president's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

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

The leader exhibited a degree of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst 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."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace approach" held that the United States had to embrace the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions in private.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

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

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign 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 end the war.

Several Trump officials have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president was present nearby as the prime minister personally called Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the ability to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the arrangement.

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

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to handle with some success."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to releasing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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