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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha appeared like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of peace further away.

This strike on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an American ally and risked widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his administration.

The president's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed 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 Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by actions.

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 against international law, the view under global norms.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, including bombing a Christian church, Trump urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to support Israel publicly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike 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. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president lent US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have informed the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. This year, Trump also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that many earlier administrations have faced, and he seems to handle with some success."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that Trump used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal