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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

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

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

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

But if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the US embassy in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured 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.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even hitting a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree of will 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 US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to support Israel publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza 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 killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, 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 turning point which motivated the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat close as Netanyahu personally called Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader developed influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have faced, and he seems to handle with some success."

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

Currently Israel has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, living and dead, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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