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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar appeared like another intensification that pushed the hope of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

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

This is a goal that he, 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, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout 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 escaped Biden and his administration.

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

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

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in the country 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 international law.

When Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have allowed Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel in private. As per sources, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of 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 United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed 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 well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to the country on this regional tour but went to the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, the president sat close as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

If Trump's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the room to influence Israel to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that Trump employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal