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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a objective that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

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

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

However, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

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

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, the US leader directed American aircraft to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of backing may have allowed Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even bombing a place of worship, Trump urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited 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. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" held that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

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

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president was present nearby as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If Trump's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past 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 indirectly with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and he seems to handle with some success."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that Trump employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

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

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

An end to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal