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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of peace out of reach.

This strike on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

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

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

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

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

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

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

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

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

Trump often states that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

During his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel 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 international law.

After Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed US bombers to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed Trump the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of some hostages.

When Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

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 nation's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took endangered dividing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit the country on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming Trump's relationship with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed influence with the Israeli government, 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 demands of the combatants has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to handle with some success."

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

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

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

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal