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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha appeared like another intensification that drove the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an American ally and risked widening the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved 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 nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

But if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Biden and his administration.

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

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

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these warm words have been backed up by actions.

During his initial time in office, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of support may have given the president the room to exert more pressure on Israel in private. As per sources, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace approach" held that the US had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing 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 domestic support, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had given Israel a significant latitude in the territory. He lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. This year, 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 initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and he seems to handle with some success."

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

Currently Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

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

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