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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas delegation in Doha appeared like another escalation that pushed the hope of peace further away.

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

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

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

This is a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this success.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

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

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

During his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered US bombers to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the room to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in July, even bombing a place of worship, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing 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 his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have informed the press that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit the country on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister himself called Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

If Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to handle with some success."

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

Currently Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has led to the destruction of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal