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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Qatar seemed like another intensification that drove the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an US partner and risked expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a objective that he, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

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

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

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his initial time in office, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under international law.

After Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump directed American aircraft to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the room to apply more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in July, including hitting a Christian church, Trump urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

His administration's "bear hug strategy" argued that the US had to embrace the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had allowed Israel a significant latitude in the territory. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter 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 turning point which motivated the president to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His 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 he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit Israel on this regional tour but went to the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump gained influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and he appears to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured during the initial October 7 assault, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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