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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another escalation that pushed the prospect of peace out of reach.

The attack on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

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

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

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

But if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - 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 contributed in this success.

However, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the leeway to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including bombing a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" held that the US had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during his term, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

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

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, 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 UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, the president was present close as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, 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 alliance with his counterpart provided him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince Hamas to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to do with some success."

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

Now Israel has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has led to the devastation of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal