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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha appeared like another intensification that pushed the prospect of peace further away.

The attack on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an American ally and risked widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a goal that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

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

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance 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, the US leader ordered US bombers to target the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in July, even hitting a place of worship, the US president pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to act.

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

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials 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 close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit the country on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, the president sat close as the prime minister personally phoned Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president'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 ability to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that many previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu personally was leverage that Trump used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has agreed to releasing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal