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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha appeared like another escalation that pushed the hope of peace further away.

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

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

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

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this success.

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

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

During his initial time in office, the president moved the US embassy in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of backing may have allowed Trump the room to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even hitting a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug strategy" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to act.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

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

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and he appears to handle relatively successfully."

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

Currently Israel has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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