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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of peace further away.

This strike on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

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

This is a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

But if this deal holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this success.

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

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of support may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu 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 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug strategy" held that the United States had to embrace Israel publicly in order to allow it to influence the country's military actions in private.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, while Trump's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months helped change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat close as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to influence the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he seems to handle with some success."

The fact that the president is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu personally was leverage that he employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal