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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

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

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

This is a objective that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

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

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the control of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

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

The president likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these warm words have been backed up by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

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

These public demonstrations of support may have given the president the room to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug strategy" argued that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, while his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, moving 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 turning point which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president sat nearby as the prime minister personally called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming Trump's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them persuade Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that many previous presidents have struggled with, and he seems to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu personally was leverage that he used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of the territory and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal