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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha appeared like another intensification that drove the prospect of peace out of reach.

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

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

That represents a goal that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

But if this deal holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

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

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

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

During his initial time in office, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader directed American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of backing may have given Trump the room to exert more pressure on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to support Israel publicly in order to enable it to influence 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. Every step Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, led the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

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

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat close as Netanyahu himself called the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart provided him the room to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb 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 fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was an advantage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

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

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