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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas delegation in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that drove the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

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

This is a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

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

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

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

In public, 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 the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under global norms.

After Israel began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have allowed Trump the room to exert more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even hitting a place of worship, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" held that the US had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout his term, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a significant latitude in the territory. He provided US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a turning point which motivated the president to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat close as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and he seems to handle with some success."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that Trump used to his advantage, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of the territory and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal