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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha appeared like yet another intensification that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

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

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

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

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

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

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu 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 American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, the US leader ordered US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed Trump the room to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, 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.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, even hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" held that the United States had to support Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months helped change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu personally called the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's alliance with his counterpart gave him the ability to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to handle with some success."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister himself was leverage that he employed to his benefit, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal