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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar appeared like another escalation that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

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

This is a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

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

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

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

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the control of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

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

Those public demonstrations of support may have given the president the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, Trump pressured his counterpart to change course.

Trump displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" held that the US had to embrace Israel openly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, during his term, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. He lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president was present close as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If Trump's alliance with his counterpart provided him the ability to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

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

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was an advantage that he used to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal