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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another intensification that drove the hope 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 seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

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

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

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

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this success.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the control of either man.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

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

The president likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these warm words have been matched by deeds.

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 long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of support may have allowed Trump the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the release of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" held that the US had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. He lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump sat close as Netanyahu himself phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to influence Israel to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump appears to do with some success."

The fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was an advantage that Trump employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of the territory and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal