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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another intensification that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened widening the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

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

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

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

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

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

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

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

Trump likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under global norms.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump directed American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of backing may have given Trump the leeway to exert more influence on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was consistently more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to support Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, while Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where he received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president sat close as the prime minister himself called Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that many previous presidents have faced, and he appears to handle with some success."

The fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu personally was leverage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal