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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like another intensification that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

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

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents 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 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 eluded Joe Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

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

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his first presidential term, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under global norms.

After Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump directed US bombers to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of backing may have allowed Trump the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" argued that the US had to support Israel publicly in order to allow it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took endangered fracturing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. He provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat close as the prime minister personally phoned Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the room to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity 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 faced, and Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu personally was leverage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the initial October 7 assault, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal