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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another escalation that pushed the hope of peace further away.

This strike on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

This is a objective that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

But if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this success.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

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

The president likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump directed American aircraft to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of backing may have given the president the room to apply more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of some hostages.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, even hitting a place of worship, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

The leader displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" held that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence the country's military actions 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. Every step the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

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

The US leader had given Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have told the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat close as the prime minister personally phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his timing, and not succumb 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 reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was an advantage that Trump used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the war, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal