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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha seemed like another escalation that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an US partner and risked widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

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

This is a goal that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader ordered US bombers to target the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the room to apply more influence on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" held that the United States had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to act.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during his term, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

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

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump was present close as Netanyahu himself phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming Trump's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them persuade Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to do with some success."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he employed to his benefit, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, living and dead, captured during the initial October 7 assault, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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