Donald Trump envoy describes recent meeting with Hamas as 'very helpful'

“I think there is a deal where you get all the hostages” freed, Boehler told CNN’s “State of the Union” show.

“I do think there’s hope,” he said. “You could see something like a long-term truce.”

Hamas is believed to still have 24 living hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered its war with Israel. The group also is holding the bodies of 34 others who were either killed in the initial attack or in captivity, as well as the remains of a soldier killed in 2014.

Boehler did not rule out additional encounters with the Palestinian terrorist group.

The envoy’s meetings with Hamas leaders, whose avowed goal is the destruction of Israel, came over the opposition of the Jewish state.

Boehler said he understood the concern expressed by Israeli official Ron Dermer about Boehler’s direct contact with Hamas.

Boehler emphasized he had a clear goal in his talks, to find a way to extend the expired truce in the fighting and end the war, in which 1,200 people were killed in the initial Hamas attack and more than 48,000 Palestinians during Israel’s subsequent counteroffensive.

"I think it was a very helpful meeting. It was very helpful to hear some back and forth," Boehler said.

"We're the United States. We're not an agent of Israel," Boehler said. "We have specific interests at play, and we did communicate back and forth. What I wanted to do is jump-start some negotiations that were in a very fragile place. And I wanted to say to Hamas, what is the end game that you want here?"

CNN anchor Jake Tapper asked Boehler, who is Jewish, how he felt talking to Hamas. "Whether they're good people or bad, it's part of my job," he replied.

The discussions between Boehler and Hamas broke with a decades-old policy by Washington against negotiating with groups the U.S. brands as terrorist organizations.

Separately, Boehler said he did not know whether American journalist Austin Tice was alive in Syria.

"I'm going to go to Syria, and I'm going to do the best I can to find out," Boehler said. "If he's there. I'm going to bring him home."

U.S. envoys are due in the Middle East this week to continue talks on a ceasefire in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israel said Sunday it is cutting off its electricity supply to Gaza, a week after it cut off aid supplies to the narrow territory along the Mediterranean Sea.

Israel is pressing Hamas to accept an extension of the first phase of their ceasefire, which ended a week ago.