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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another intensification that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a objective that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

But if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

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

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

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

The president often states that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under global norms.

When Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump directed American aircraft to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of backing may have given Trump the room to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return 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 his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during his term, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Helped Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, 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 UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where he heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

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

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister himself was an advantage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to releasing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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