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

This strike on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

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

This is a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

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

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this success.

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under global norms.

When Israel began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, the US leader directed American aircraft to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the room to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a Christian church, the US president pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

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

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to 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 United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump gained influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to do with some success."

The fact that the president is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump employed to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has agreed to freeing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal