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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha appeared like yet another intensification that pushed the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

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

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this success.

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

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

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the US embassy in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under global norms.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, the US leader directed American aircraft to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the room to apply more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, the president's envoy, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of some hostages.

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

Trump exhibited a level of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was always more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took endangered dividing his own political backing, while Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, Trump sat close as the prime minister himself called Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

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

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

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

Now the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal