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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of peace further away.

The attack on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

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

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

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

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of support may have allowed Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured his counterpart to change course.

Trump displayed a level of will and insistence 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 American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the United States had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

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

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. The president lent American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, Trump was present close as Netanyahu himself called Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to do 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 do relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal