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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha seemed like yet another intensification that pushed the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

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

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

But if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this success.

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

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

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, Trump directed US bombers to target the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of backing may have given the president the room to exert more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured 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.

When Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

Trump displayed a level of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the country's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave 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, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president was present close as Netanyahu personally phoned Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has agreed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

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