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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 hope of peace out of reach.

This strike on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened widening the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

This is a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

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

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this success.

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

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

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

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.

After Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed Trump the room to apply more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was always more strained.

His administration's "bear hug strategy" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel publicly in order to allow it to moderate the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden'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 risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart provided him the room to influence Israel to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump appears to handle with some success."

The reality that the president is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu personally was leverage that he employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

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

An end to the war, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal