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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

The attack on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an US partner and risked widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

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

That represents a objective that he, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

But if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his administration.

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

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

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

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

During his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

When Israel began its bombing campaign 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 visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, Trump's envoy, his representative, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even hitting a Christian church, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace strategy" held that the US had to embrace Israel publicly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to act.

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

Eight 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 key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. He provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

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

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, the president sat close as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to do relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that he used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has agreed to releasing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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