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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar seemed like another intensification that drove the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

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

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

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

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

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

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

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

Trump often states that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

When Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the room to exert more pressure on Israel in private. As per sources, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israel attacked against Syria's military in July, including bombing a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was always more strained.

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" held that the United States had to embrace the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence the country's military actions in private.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, while Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

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

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have told the press that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

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

The reality that the president is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister himself was an advantage that Trump used to his advantage, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has resulted in the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal