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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha seemed like another intensification that drove the prospect of peace out of reach.

This strike on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

This is a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

Yet if this deal holds, it could be 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 appear to have played a role in this success.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

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

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump ordered US bombers to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows 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 Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in July, including hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a level of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took endangered fracturing his own political backing, while Trump's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed the press that this was a turning point which motivated the president to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success 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 an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu personally called Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

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

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal