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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like another escalation that drove the prospect of peace further away.

The attack on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

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

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

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

The president's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

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

The president often states that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

After Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader directed American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of support may have given the president the room to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured 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. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" held that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, while Trump's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had allowed 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 separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to the country on this regional tour but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat close as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If Trump's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence 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 timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal