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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like yet another intensification that pushed the prospect of peace out of reach.

This strike on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the initial phase 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 stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

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

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these warm words have been matched by actions.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under global norms.

After Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of support may have given the president the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of some hostages.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" held that the US had to embrace Israel publicly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's military actions in private.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, while his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatari territory 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 informed the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months helped change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat close as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and helped them convince the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump appears to do with some success."

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

Currently Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

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