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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another escalation that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

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

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

That represents a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

But if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

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

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, the US leader ordered US bombers to target the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed Trump the room to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even hitting a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree 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 publicly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took endangered fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to act.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during his term, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory 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 decisive moment which galvanised the leader to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that he used to his benefit, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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