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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha appeared like another escalation that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened widening the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

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

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

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this success.

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

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "most supportive friend 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 its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even hitting a Christian church, Trump pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a level of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president 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.

His administration's "bear hug approach" argued that the US had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to moderate the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

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

Trump had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that he used to his advantage, he adds.

Currently Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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