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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha appeared like another escalation that drove the hope of peace further away.

This strike on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an US partner and risked widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his initial time in office, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under global norms.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even hitting a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to support the nation publicly 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. Every step Biden took endangered fracturing his own political backing, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. This year, he also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister personally phoned Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to handle relatively successfully."

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

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal