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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas delegation in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of peace out of reach.

The attack on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

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

That represents a goal that he, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

But if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

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

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump often states that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these warm words have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's envoy, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu 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 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

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

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

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

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited 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 diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince Hamas to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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

The fact that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister himself was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

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