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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas delegation in Doha appeared like yet another intensification that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the first step 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 agreement holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

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

Trump often states that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been matched by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

After Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, the US leader ordered US bombers to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the room to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the release of some hostages.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in July, even hitting a Christian church, the US president pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a level of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says 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."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" held that the US had to embrace the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the country's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, the president was present close as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming Trump's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the ability to pressure the government to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

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

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

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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