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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like yet another intensification that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

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

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a objective that he, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

But if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this success.

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

When Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

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

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. He lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have told media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Doha 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.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump sat close as Netanyahu himself called the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu personally was leverage that he used to his benefit, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October assault, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal