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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar seemed like yet another intensification that drove the hope of peace further away.

The attack on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

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

That represents a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped 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 breakthrough.

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed American aircraft to target the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed Trump the room to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of some hostages.

When Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, including bombing a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "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 relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to support Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, during his term, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. He provided US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where he heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

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

Currently Israel has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken in the original 7 October assault, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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