White House: Hamas claim it will skip Doha talks may be posturing

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre suggests the Hamas terror group may be bluffing when it insists that it will not participate in talks set for Doha tomorrow aimed at ending fighting in Gaza and freeing hostages,

“There’s always political posturing. We see this all the time in advance of talks. That’s not new,” she says.

Jean-Pierre says the US expects the talks to go ahead as planned despite Hamas refusing to sign on, confirming that CIA Director Bill Burns and US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk will represent the United States at the talks.

“Tomorrow’s going to be an important day. We want to see a ceasefire. We want to see an end to this war, we want to see hostages come home, including American hostages, we want to see (an) increase of humanitarian aid going into Gaza,” she says. “And we believe the way to deescalate the tensions that we’re seeing in the Middle East is to get to this deal.”

Jean-Pierre refuses to comment on the US being potentially frustrated with additional Israel demands for a ceasefire, saying, “I’m not going to get into negotiations from here.”