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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar appeared like another escalation that pushed the hope of a ceasefire further away.

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

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

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

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

But if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his initial time in office, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

When Israel 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.

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

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

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

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

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. The president lent US armed support to Israel's campaign 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.

A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with state visits 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 diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour 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 Israeli strike on the city, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to influence Israel to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and he seems to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister himself was leverage that he employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured during the initial October 7 assault, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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