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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha appeared like yet another intensification that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

The attack on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

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

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

Yet if this deal stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this success.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission 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 bombing campaign against Iran in June, the US leader directed American aircraft to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the room to apply more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president 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 consistently more tenuous.

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" argued that the US had to support Israel publicly in order to enable it to moderate the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during his term, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted the president to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign 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 conclude the conflict.

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

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, Trump sat close as Netanyahu himself called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he used to his benefit, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured in the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal