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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened widening the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

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

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

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

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

During his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the room to exert more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of some hostages.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including bombing a place of worship, Trump urged Netanyahu to change course.

The leader displayed a level of will and pressure 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 prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions in private.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen 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 relatively free hand in the territory. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, he 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, such as the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu personally called Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

If Trump's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the ability to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

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

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the original 7 October assault, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the war, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal