At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas delegation in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of a ceasefire further away.
The attack on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.
Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.
However, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.
This is a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.
This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.
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 unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.
But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the control of both leaders.
Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.
Trump often states that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by deeds.
Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated 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 Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.
After Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.
Those visible shows of backing may have given Trump the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of some hostages.
When Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even hitting a Christian church, Trump pressured his counterpart to change course.
The leader exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, 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 Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.
His administration's "bear hug approach" held that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.
Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to manoeuvre.
In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to make peace.
Several months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.
An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to issue an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.
The US leader had given Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.
A number of administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply full force to finalize an agreement.
This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.
His visits he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.
Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.
Assuming Trump's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the arrangement.
"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," notes an analyst of the a research center.
"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump appears to do with some success."
The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu personally was leverage that Trump used to his advantage, he adds.
Now Israel has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.
The group will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.
An end to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal
