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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha seemed like yet another intensification that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

The attack on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

That represents a goal that he, and President 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 negotiated.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this success.

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that the nation 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 backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed US bombers to strike the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of support may have given the president the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even hitting a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

His administration's "close embrace approach" held that the US had to embrace the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump was present close as Netanyahu personally called Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming Trump's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that many previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to do with some success."

The fact that the president is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that Trump used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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