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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

This is a goal that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this success.

However, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump often states that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

During his first presidential term, Trump moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump directed US bombers to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of support may have allowed the president the room to exert more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of some hostages.

When Israel attacked against Syria's military in July, even hitting a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" held that the United States had to support Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took risked dividing his own domestic support, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming Trump's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to pressure the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve 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 fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was an advantage that Trump used to his advantage, he adds.

Currently Israel has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal