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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha seemed like another escalation that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

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

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this deal stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded 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 breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

When Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump directed US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of some hostages.

When Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a level of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" held that the US had to support Israel openly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct in private.

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

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he heard repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," notes Jon Alterman 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 combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister himself was an advantage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, living and dead, captured in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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