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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha seemed like another intensification that drove the hope of peace further away.

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

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

But if this agreement holds, 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 Arab world appear to have played a role in this success.

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

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

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

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under global norms.

After Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of support may have allowed Trump the room to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, even hitting a place of worship, the US president urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst 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 always more tenuous.

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

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led Trump to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where he received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

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

Assuming the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the ability to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump gained influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump appears to handle with some success."

The fact that the president is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister himself was an advantage that Trump used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will release all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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