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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha appeared like another intensification that drove the prospect of peace further away.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a objective that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

Yet if this deal stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

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

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the control of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the leeway to apply more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured his counterpart to change course.

Trump displayed a level of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug strategy" held that the United States had to embrace the nation publicly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His 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.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, the president was present close as Netanyahu himself called Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and he seems to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister personally was an advantage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

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

An end to the war, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal