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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha seemed like another escalation that drove the hope of peace further away.

The attack on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and risked widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

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

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

Yet if this deal stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this success.

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated the US embassy 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 against international law, the position under global norms.

When Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's envoy, his representative, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, including hitting a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel publicly in order to allow it to influence the country's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits 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 travel to the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat close as the prime minister personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

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

A conclusion to the war, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal