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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like another intensification that pushed the prospect of peace further away.

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

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

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

Trump's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been matched by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

When Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the room to apply more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even hitting a place of worship, the US president urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

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

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led the president to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to apply full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, he also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump sat close as Netanyahu personally called the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince the group to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister himself was leverage that Trump used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured in the initial October 7 assault, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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