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

This strike on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

But if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

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

Trump likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been matched by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, Trump directed American aircraft to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of support may have allowed Trump the room to exert more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump exhibited a level 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 leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" held that the US had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence the country's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

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

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the president to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister himself was an advantage that he employed to his advantage, he adds.

Currently Israel has agreed to releasing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

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

An end to the conflict, which has resulted in the devastation of the territory and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal