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

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

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a objective that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

Yet if this deal stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

Trump's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this success.

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these warm words have been matched by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under international law.

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

These public demonstrations of support may have given the president the leeway to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, including bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

Trump displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" 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 Biden's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, while 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 Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat close as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader gained influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to do with some success."

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

Currently the Israeli government has committed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the devastation of the territory and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal