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

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

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

That represents a objective 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 details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

But if this deal stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this success.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

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

Trump likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.

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

These public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, even hitting a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" held that the United States had to embrace Israel publicly in order to enable it to moderate the country's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, while Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to apply full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, Trump also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump was present close as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump appears to handle with some success."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was an advantage that Trump used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to releasing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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