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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another intensification that drove the hope of peace further away.

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

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a goal that he, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

But if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

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

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

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

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

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader directed American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the room to exert more influence on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug strategy" held that the US had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

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

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the president to apply full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the ability to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump appears to handle with some success."

The fact that the president is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that he used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has agreed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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