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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of peace further away.

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

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

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

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

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

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

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

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

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved 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 global norms.

After Israel began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, the US leader directed US bombers to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the room to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a Christian church, Trump urged Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. He lent American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where he heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump sat close as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's alliance with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have faced, and he appears to do with some success."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was an advantage that Trump employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has agreed to releasing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal