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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

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

This is a objective that he, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

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

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

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by actions.

During his first presidential term, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, the US leader directed American aircraft to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given the president the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even bombing a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the United States had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted the president to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. He provided US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

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 strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister personally phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's alliance with his counterpart provided him the room to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and helped them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that he used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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