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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of peace out of reach.

The attack on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an US partner and risked widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

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

This is a objective that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

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

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump ordered US bombers to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of support may have given the president the leeway to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's envoy, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of a number of captives.

When Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even hitting a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of 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 always more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led the president to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months helped shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump was present close as the prime minister personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

If Trump's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

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

Currently Israel has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed 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 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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