Report: US envoy held direct talks with Hamas to try to give Trump win before speech
Adam Boehler sat with terror leaders three times in attempt to free Edan Alexander before address to Congress, NY Times says, but Hamas refused until it was too late
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
The Trump administration rushed to hammer out an agreement in direct talks with Hamas in March to free US citizen Edan Alexander in order to give the US president a win in time for his address to a joint session of Congress, The New York Times reported on Thursday.
The talks were ongoing even as President Donald Trump reached the US Capitol on March 5 to deliver the address, according to the report. Failing to make a deal, Trump only mentioned the hostages in one brief sentence during his speech.
News of the direct talks between the US and the terror group leaked on that same day, amid private but intense criticism from Jerusalem. The talks, held in parallel to indirect negotiations mediated by Qatar and Egypt, focused on releasing the American hostages still held captive in Gaza (of the five, only Alexander is believed to be alive).
Both tracks failed, and Israel returned to combat in Gaza later in March.
The first of three early March meetings took place in Doha between Trump’s special hostage envoy Adam Boehler, his adviser and three Hamas political officials — Taher al-Nono, Basem Naim and Osama Hamdan.
The men ate knafeh and drank orange juice under a large poster of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque and a photo of slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, the report said, as Nono argued the terror group was simply trying to achieve freedom — a core American value — for Palestinians.
Two days later, The Times said, Boehler met with senior Hamas politburo official Khalil al-Hayya, who told the American that Alexander’s release would usually cost 500 hostages, but that as a goodwill gesture, Hamas would free him for 250 prisoners in Israeli jails, including 100 who are serving life sentences.
Without consulting Jerusalem, even though the terrorists in question were sentenced and held by Israel, Boehler came back with an offer of 100 prisoners serving life sentences, with the other 150 prisoners to be released in the future.
The direct US-Hamas discussions broke with a decades-old policy by Washington against negotiating with groups that the US has designated terrorist organizations. Hamas has been proscribed as such since 1997.
Israel caught wind of the talks on March 4, and Boehler received an angry phone call from Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer. Beyond the problematic aspect of breaking with established policy, the notion of hostages with a specific dual nationality receiving preferential treatment would be highly problematic in Israel.
A Western official told The Times of Israel that Dermer “lashed out” at Boehler upon learning of the talks after the fact. (Boehler later insisted in the media that Israel had been informed and that he was able to put Dermer “at ease.”)
The next day, on March 5, “two sources with direct knowledge of the discussions” leaked to Axios that the US was talking to Hamas.
The Ynet outlet reported that US officials believed Israel was behind the leak, in a bid to torpedo the talks.
Boehler had also flown to Doha in January, hoping to meet senior Hamas officials, but the White House canceled the meeting after Israel found out and pushed for it to be called off, according to two sources.
The final meeting between the sides took place on March 5, the report said, with the US offering 100 Palestinian prisoners, with no guarantee that they were ones serving life sentences. Additionally, Hamas would be required to release the bodies of the four slain US-Israeli hostages it was holding in exchange for the release of Palestinian women and children, the renewal of aid to Gaza, and the arrival of US special envoy Steve Witkoff to Qatar to start talks about phase two of the January ceasefire deal, which could end the war in Gaza.
The slain US citizens are believed to be Itay Chen, Omer Neutra, Gadi Haggai and Judy Weinstein.
Al-Hayya reportedly said that Hamas was also open to a five-to-ten-year truce with Israel.
Boehler told al-Hayya that it was his final offer, and if it wasn’t accepted by the time he took off later that day, the deal might not be on the table any longer. Al-Hayya responded that he wanted to accept, but that Hamas would not.
Hamas, in an official statement on March 14, said that it had agreed to a proposal to release Alexander and the four bodies of the other Americans. Witkoff publicly rejected the deal the next day and called on the terror group to accept his bridging proposal that would see multiple living hostages and Alexander released at the outset of an extended ceasefire.
After a series of disastrous interviews about the direct talks with Hamas, Boehler withdrew his candidacy to serve as special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, continuing to work on the issue with a lower-level title that doesn’t require Senate confirmation.
Numerous reports have indicated that Witkoff’s bridging proposal requires Hamas to release five living hostages and the remains of 10 others, but this has not been confirmed. Israel has reportedly pushed for more living hostages. There are believed to be 24 living hostages still in Gaza, as well as 35 confirmed by Israel to be dead.
The hostages were taken on October 7, 2023, when Hamas led thousands of terrorists in an invasion of southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 as hostages to the Gaza Strip.
A week-long ceasefire in November 2023 saw the release of over 100 hostages, mostly women and children.
In January 2025, another ceasefire was agreed, and during the ensuing weeks, dozens of hostages, alive and dead, were returned in small batches in return for boosted humanitarian aid to Gaza and the release of over 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners held in Israeli prisons.
The sides had agreed to hold talks on a second and third phase that would include the return of all hostages, end the war, and ensure a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. However, the truce collapsed after the first stage when Israel refused to enter negotiations on the terms of the subsequent phases, and Hamas refused to extend the first phase, leading Jerusalem to resume military operations in Gaza.
The Times of Israel Community.