At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like yet another intensification that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.
The attack on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.
Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.
However, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.
This is a goal that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.
This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.
Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his administration.
The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this success.
However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the influence of both leaders.
In public, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.
The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.
During his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under global norms.
After the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed American aircraft to target the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.
These public demonstrations of support may have given the president the room to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.
After Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.
Trump exhibited a level of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."
Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.
The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the country's war conduct behind closed doors.
Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took endangered fracturing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to act.
In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.
Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.
The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, led Trump to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.
Trump had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position 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 president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.
This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.
His visits he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.
Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump was present close as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.
If Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the deal.
"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that many previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to do with some success."
The reality that the president is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump used to his advantage, the expert continues.
Now the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.
The group will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.
A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the devastation of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal
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