Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of peace further away.
This strike on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.
Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.
Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.
That represents a goal that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.
It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.
Yet if this deal holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement 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 contributed in this breakthrough.
However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the influence of both leaders.
Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.
Trump likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been matched by actions.
Throughout his first presidential term, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.
When Israel began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.
Those public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the leeway to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.
After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a Christian church, Trump urged his counterpart to change course.
Trump displayed a degree of determination 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 American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."
Joe Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.
The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to embrace the nation publicly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct in private.
Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took risked dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to act.
In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.
Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.
An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.
The US leader had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. He provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.
A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a turning point which motivated the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.
This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
His Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.
His visits devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where he heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.
Less than a month after that attack on the city, Trump was present close as the prime minister personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.
If the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the arrangement.
"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that many earlier administrations have faced, and he appears to do with some success."
The fact that the president is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that Trump employed to his benefit, the expert continues.
Now Israel has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.
Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.
A conclusion to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal
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