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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha appeared like another intensification that drove the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

This is a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

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

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

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

The president likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

During his initial time in office, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel 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 global norms.

When Israel began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more influence on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israel attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, Trump urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was always more strained.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" held that the US had to embrace the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions in private.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during his term, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader 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 business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, he also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to change his thinking, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president was present close as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to do with some success."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that he employed to his advantage, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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