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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like yet another intensification that drove the hope of peace further away.

The attack on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase 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 deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

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

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the control of either man.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these warm words have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under international law.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of backing may have given Trump the leeway to apply more influence on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the release of a number of captives.

When Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller 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."

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

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

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to act.

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

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

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. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed Israel a significant latitude in the territory. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but went to the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister personally called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader developed influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and he appears to do with some success."

The fact that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu himself was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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