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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Qatar seemed like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

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

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

This is a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered US bombers to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the room to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug strategy" held that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals 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 final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, the president was present close as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will free all the captives still held, living and dead, captured during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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