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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of peace further away.

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

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

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

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

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the US embassy in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered US bombers to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of support may have allowed Trump the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's envoy, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, including bombing a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

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

Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister personally phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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