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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of peace further away.

This strike on September 9 violated 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 pivotal event that has led in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the room to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israel attacked against Syria's military in July, including bombing a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

The leader displayed a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to moderate the country's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own domestic support, while Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in the territory. He lent American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have told the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump sat close as Netanyahu himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off 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 relationship with his counterpart gave him the room to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to handle with some success."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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