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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha appeared like another escalation that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

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

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

This is a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance 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 Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

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

The president likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

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

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the room to apply more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "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.

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the US had to embrace the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the nation's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

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

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit the country on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to influence the government to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and helped them convince the group to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to handle with some success."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to releasing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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