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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like another intensification that pushed the prospect of peace out of reach.

This strike on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, 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 he, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

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

Trump's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

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

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

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

Trump likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

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

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the room 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 return for the release of some hostages.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a place of worship, the US president urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to moderate the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took endangered fracturing his own political backing, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to act.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during his term, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where he heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, the president sat close as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that many previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu himself was leverage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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