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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of peace out of reach.

This strike on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

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

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this success.

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

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump directed American aircraft to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, even hitting a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a degree of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the a think tank. "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 Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

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

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to act.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during his term, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to issue an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a turning point which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

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

His visits he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where he heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming the president's alliance with his counterpart gave him the ability to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and he seems to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu himself was leverage that Trump employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal