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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar seemed like yet 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 risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

This is a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

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

But if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

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

These public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the room to exert more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was always more strained.

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the US had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months helped shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump was present close as Netanyahu personally phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and helped them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

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

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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