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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas delegation in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that drove the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

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

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

But if this deal stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Joe 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.

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

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

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

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been matched by actions.

During his initial time in office, the president moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader directed American aircraft to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of a number of captives.

When Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, including hitting a Christian church, Trump pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader 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 "bear hug strategy" argued that the United States had to support Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had allowed Israel a significant latitude in the territory. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president was present close as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If Trump's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence Israel to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

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

Now Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will release all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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