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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

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

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

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

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

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

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

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

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

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

During his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under global norms.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump ordered US bombers to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the room to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a place of worship, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

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

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

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during his term, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

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 devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, the president was present close as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming Trump's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to do with some success."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was an advantage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

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

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