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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

This strike on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

This is a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

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

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

The president's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this success.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed American aircraft to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's envoy, his representative, 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.

When Israel attacked against Syria's military in July, even hitting a place of worship, Trump urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to embrace Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

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

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

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

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself called Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and he appears to handle with some success."

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

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured in the initial October 7 assault, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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