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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of peace out of reach.

The attack on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

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

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

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

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

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

Trump likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his initial time in office, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under global norms.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of backing may have given Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the release of some hostages.

After Israel attacked against Syria's military in July, even bombing a Christian church, the US president pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was consistently more strained.

His administration's "bear hug strategy" held that the United States had to support 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 Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took risked fracturing his own domestic support, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout his term, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, the president sat close as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's alliance with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister himself was an advantage that he employed to his advantage, he adds.

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

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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