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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha seemed like another intensification that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

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

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

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

The president's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this success.

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under global norms.

When Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of support may have given the president the room to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence the country's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

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

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu himself was leverage that he used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees held in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal