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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar seemed like yet another intensification that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

This is a goal that he, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

But if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this success.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these warm words have been matched by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump ordered US bombers to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the leeway to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the release of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, Trump pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister 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 leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to influence the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics 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 his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, 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 earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he appears to do with some success."

The fact that the president is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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