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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

That represents a objective that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

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

Trump's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by actions.

During his first presidential term, Trump moved the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

When Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, 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 a number of captives.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even bombing a Christian church, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" held that the US had to support Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

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

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

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

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, the president was present close as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that he used to his benefit, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal