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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Doha seemed like another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

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

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

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

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

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

During his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

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

Those visible shows of support may have given Trump the leeway to apply more influence on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syria's military in July, even bombing a place of worship, Trump urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility 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 unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. However an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

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

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he heard repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, the president was present nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to pressure the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them persuade Hamas to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader developed influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," says an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu himself was leverage that he used to his advantage, he adds.

Now Israel has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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