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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha seemed like another intensification that drove the prospect of peace out of reach.

The attack on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

That represents a goal that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

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

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in the country from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, Trump ordered US bombers to target the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given the president the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of a number of captives.

When Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, even hitting a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader displayed a degree of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to influence the nation'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. Every step Biden took risked dividing his own domestic support, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to 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, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat close as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, living and dead, captured during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal