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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

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

That represents a objective that he, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

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

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

During his initial time in office, the president moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given the president the room to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" held that the US had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took risked fracturing his own political backing, while Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, Trump was present close as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the ability to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump appears to do with some success."

The reality 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 committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the death 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