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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas 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 US partner and threatened widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this success.

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

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

These visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more influence on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, even bombing a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

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

Joe Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was consistently more tenuous.

His administration's "bear hug approach" held that the US had to support Israel publicly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took endangered fracturing his own political backing, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, moving him closer to 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 decisive moment which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister himself was an advantage that he employed to his benefit, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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