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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha appeared like another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

But if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that eluded Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this success.

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

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

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

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, 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 actions.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position 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, the US leader ordered US bombers to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of backing may have given the president the leeway to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.

When Israel attacked against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump displayed a level of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" held that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took risked fracturing his own domestic support, while Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have informed the press that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat close as the prime minister personally phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump appears to do with some success."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that Trump used to his advantage, he adds.

Currently Israel has agreed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which caused the death of over 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