Courtesy of JNS. Photo credit: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
US Envoy for Hostages Adam Boehler speaks during a US hostage and wrongful detainee flag raising ceremony at the State Department in Washington, DC, on March 6, 2025
(JNS) — U.S. Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs Adam Boehler confirmed on Sunday in a series of television interviews with American and Israeli media that direct talks with Hamas had indeed taken place, despite long-standing U.S. policy against negotiating with terrorists.
“The reason that I met Hamas is because I want to work to help to get Americans and Israelis out,” he said during an interview with Israel’s Kan News, adding that he wanted to know the terror group’s demands for ending the war. “Some of the things that they talked about were relatively reasonable things and workable things,” he said.
Boehler claimed that Hamas had suggested a prisoners-for-hostages swap — releasing the remaining 59 hostages in Gaza, both living and deceased, for an unspecified number of Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons. The terror group had also suggested a five to 10-year truce, “where Hamas would lay down all weapons and where the United States would help as well as other countries [to] ensure that there are no tunnels, there’s nothing taken on the military side and that Hamas is not involved in politics going forward.”
The emissary emphasized that he is acting on the orders of U.S. President Donald Trump, “who instructed me to get every single person home.”
U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is reportedly traveling to Doha, Qatar on Tuesday for ceasefire talks, joining an Israeli delegation that arrived at the Qatari capital on Monday.
The talks will be the first since Trump took office on Jan. 20 and since the initial Israel-Hamas agreement that established a 42-day ceasefire in Gaza, which ended on March 1 after securing the release of 33 hostages, both living and deceased.
The Trump administration is pushing for a deal that would secure the release of all remaining hostages, extend the ceasefire through Ramadan and Passover and potentially lead to a long-term truce.
“I would be surprised that between me, Steve Witkoff, people like [U.S. National Security Advisor] Mike Waltz, people like Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio, this is the A team, the foreign policy A team that President Trump put together. You’ve got a lot of folks that are there, that are very, very talented people and I’d be surprised if there is not some movement,” Boehler told Kan anchor Tali Moreno.
“If I want to be optimistic, I would say weeks,” he said in response to a question from Moreno about when he thinks the hostages will be released.
However, later on Sunday Boehler claimed that his positions were being “misinterpreted,” defining Hamas as a terrorist group that has murdered thousands of innocent people in an social media post.
“They are BY DEFINITION BAD people. And as @POTUS has said, not a single Hamas member will be safe if Hamas doesn’t RELEASE ALL HOSTAGES IMMEDIATELY,” he tweeted, tagging Trump, Witkoff, Rubio and Waltz.
Trump’s former ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, criticized attempts to forge an agreement with Hamas, calling it “a waste of time.”
“This past week, President Trump brilliantly presented Hamas with a binary choice: release all the hostages and surrender, or be destroyed. It is the only path to ending the war,” Friedman tweeted on Sunday.
“If I heard @aboehler correctly on the Sunday news shows, he took the unprecedented step to meet with Hamas to consider a third way — whether a deal could be struck where Hamas ‘would not be involved’ in governing Gaza,” he wrote.
“A deal with Hamas is a waste of time and will never be kept. Attempting one is beneath the dignity of the United States. Adam, I know you mean well but listen to your boss. The choice must remain binary,” he continued.
The Israel Defense Forces has confirmed that 35 of the hostages still in Gaza are dead. Israeli intelligence believes 22 are alive, while the status of two remains uncertain. Among the captives are five Americans, including 21-year-old Edan Alexander, who is believed to be alive.
Hamas led a terrorist invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering 1,200 people, wounding thousands more, and kidnapping 251 to Gaza, sparking a regional war against Iran and its terror proxies.
