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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of peace further away.

The attack on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

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

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

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

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

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

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

Trump often states that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under global norms.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump directed American aircraft to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the room to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even hitting a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to change course.

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

Joe Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was always more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to support Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to act.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where he heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart provided him the room to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

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

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to handle with some success."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was leverage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

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