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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that drove the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

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

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the control of either man.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

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

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under international law.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

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

Trump displayed a level of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug strategy" held that the US had to embrace the nation publicly in order to enable it to moderate the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president was present nearby as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence Israel to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that Trump used to his advantage, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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