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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like another intensification that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

The attack on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

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

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

Trump's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

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

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his initial time in office, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the room to apply more influence on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister 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 Syrian forces in July, including bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace strategy" held that the United States had to embrace Israel publicly in order to allow it to moderate the country's military actions in private.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties 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 his new administration, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have told media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader received consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump was present close as the prime minister himself called Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have secured 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 the militants," says an analyst of the a research center.

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

The fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was an advantage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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