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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like another escalation that pushed the hope of peace further away.

This strike on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an American ally and risked widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

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

This is a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

But if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his administration.

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this success.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel'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 US embassy in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a Christian church, Trump pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace strategy" held that the United States had to embrace Israel publicly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. The president lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed the press that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

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 Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that many previous presidents have struggled with, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

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

The group will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal