Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like another escalation that drove the hope of peace out of reach.
The attack on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.
Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.
Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.
That represents a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.
This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.
Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.
Trump's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.
However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the control of either man.
In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.
The president likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these warm words have been backed up by deeds.
Throughout his initial time in office, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under global norms.
When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader ordered US bombers to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.
These public demonstrations of support may have allowed Trump the room to apply more pressure on Israel in private. As per sources, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of a number of captives.
After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to change course.
The leader displayed a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."
Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.
His administration's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct in private.
Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, while Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to act.
In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to make peace.
Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of 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 final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.
The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He lent American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.
A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.
The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.
His normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.
His visits devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.
Within weeks after that attack on the city, the president sat close as the prime minister personally called Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.
If Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them persuade Hamas to commit to the deal.
"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," notes an analyst of the a research center.
"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."
The fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was leverage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.
Currently the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.
Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.
An end to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal
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