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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas delegation in Doha seemed like another escalation that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

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

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

This is a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

But if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

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

Trump often states that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

During his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the leeway to apply more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israel attacked against Syria's military in July, even hitting a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader 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 leader that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

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

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations 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 maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to express regret. 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 key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he seems to do relatively successfully."

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

Now Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

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

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal