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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another intensification that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

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

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

But if this deal stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

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

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

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

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

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under global norms.

After Israel began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, Trump ordered US bombers to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the room to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, the US president pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" held that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, while his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure 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 the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit the country on this regional tour but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister himself was an advantage that he employed to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the original 7 October assault, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal