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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of peace further away.

This strike on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

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

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

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

The president likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the leeway to apply more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" held that the US had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to influence the nation'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 Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to apply full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where he heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump sat close as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed influence 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. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and he appears to do with some success."

The fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has agreed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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