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

This strike on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

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

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump often states that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

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

Those visible shows of support may have allowed Trump the leeway to apply more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, even hitting a place of worship, the US president urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was always more strained.

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel publicly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's military actions in private.

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

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout his term, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to exert 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 UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, says Ed Husain 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 he received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president sat close as the prime minister personally phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the deal.

"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 Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have faced, and Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was leverage that he used to his benefit, he adds.

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

The group will release all the captives still held, living and dead, taken during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has led to the devastation of the territory and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal