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

The attack on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

That represents a objective that he, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

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

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been matched by deeds.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital 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 air strikes against Iran in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even bombing a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

The leader displayed a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" held that the US had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, 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 Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha 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 devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, 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 support of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming Trump's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and helped them persuade 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 Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump appears to do relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was an advantage that he used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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