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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a goal that he, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

It is just the initial phase 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 Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

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

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these warm words have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.

When Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed Trump the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, Trump urged his counterpart to change course.

The leader displayed a degree of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" held that the US had to support Israel publicly in order to enable it to moderate the country's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during his term, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat close as the prime minister personally phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he seems to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal