The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt confirms talks but declines to provide details
The White House is holding direct talks with Hamas over the return of the Israeli hostages held since 7 October, breaking decades of precedent by engaging with the militant group without intermediaries.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday that officials had held “ongoing talks and discussions” with Hamas officials, as the Trump administration has vowed to return all of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza amid a shaky ceasefire deal.
Leavitt told reporters that Israel had been consulted on the talks and that the US special envoy Adam Boehler “does have the authority to talk to anyone” when “American lives are at stake.”
Hamas members confirmed the reports, saying there had been two direct meetings between US officials and Hamas in Doha, the Qatari capital, in recent days.
“Several communications took place between Hamas and various American communication channels, the latest being with a US envoy and discussed the issue of Israeli prisoners who hold American citizenship, both the living and the deceased,” a Hamas official told AFP.
Israel said it had conveyed its position on direct talks with Hamas, Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said late on Wednesday, offering no further details.
“Israel has expressed to the United States its position regarding direct talks with Hamas,” the statement from the prime minister’s office said.
“Dialogue and talking to people around the world to do the best interests of the American people is something that the president has proven, is what he believes is good-faith effort to do what’s right for the American people,” Leavitt said.
Axios first reported the “secret talks” with Hamas, citing two sources with direct knowledge of meetings held in Doha, Qatar, in recent weeks.
The outlet called the talks “unprecedented”, noting that the US had never before engaged with Hamas and that it had declared the group a terrorist organisation in 1997.
Fifty-nine hostages are still held by Hamas, though Israeli intelligence believes that only 22 are still alive.
Five Americans are believed to still be held by Hamas, one of whom, 21-year-old Edan Alexander, is believed to still be alive.
Under the terms of the hostages-for-ceasefire deal, which went into effect on 19 January, Hamas was expected to release hostages weekly in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
After six weeks, Israel and Hamas were expected to enter a second stage of the negotiations, which would make the ceasefire permanent and secure the release of the remaining hostages.
But those talks have not progressed and the White House’s decision to engage directly with Hamas appears to be targeted to meet Trump’s goals of securing the release of all hostages held in Gaza.
Trump has warned that unless they are released, there will be “hell to pay” in the region, in what appeared to be a threat directed specifically at Hamas.
But Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff has also pressured Netanyahu to push forward with the negotiations, and was crucial in convincing the Israeli prime minister to sign the original ceasefire deal that went into effect in January.
Boehler is tasked with securing the release of Americans who have been “wrongfully detained” by governments or other groups around the world. But it remains unclear whether he is discussing the release of these hostages as part of a longer-term truce, which would mark a significant increase in his authority and indicate that the US could be going around Israel to negotiate an end to the war.
Witkoff, the Trump envoy who negotiated the earlier ceasefire and has now been tasked with negotiations with Russia as well, was set to travel to Doha earlier this week to meet the Qatari prime minister about the ceasefire negotiations but “canceled the trip on Tuesday night after he saw there was no progress from Hamas’ side”, a US official told Axios.
Trump has broken with Biden administration strategies for resolving the war in Gaza, giving increasing military backing to Israel and suggesting that millions of Palestinians should be forcibly deported to other countries because the Israeli onslaught has made it unsafe to live there.
