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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another intensification that pushed the hope of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a goal that he, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

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

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

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

During his first presidential term, Trump moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader directed US bombers to target the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows 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, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, the US president pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to embrace Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit the country on this regional tour but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If the president's alliance with his counterpart provided him the room to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them convince Hamas to agree to the deal.

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

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he seems to handle relatively successfully."

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

Currently 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 during the original 7 October assault, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of the territory and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal