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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha appeared like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of peace further away.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

That represents a objective that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

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

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

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this success.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country 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 view under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump directed American aircraft to target the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the room to exert more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

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

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" held that the United States had to support Israel publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

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

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led the president to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, 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 region.

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart gave him the room to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity 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 Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that Trump employed to his benefit, he adds.

Currently Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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