White House says Israel-Hamas talks shouldn’t be impacted by drone attack that killed US troops

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The White House on Monday reiterated President Joe Biden’s pledge to appropriately respond to the fatal attack on a US base in Jordan last week while pressing forward with negotiations that could free hostages held by Hamas and bring about a pause in fighting between Israel and the militant group.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters at the daily White House press briefing that there was “no reason” that the work by US negotiators, including CIA Director William Burns, over talks in Paris with Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials, would be impeded by the drone strike by Iran-backed militants, which claimed the lives of three US soldiers and injured dozens of others.

President Joe Biden has vowed that the US “shall respond” to the attack, which is widely believed to be part of a campaign orchestrated by Tehran to escalate tensions and inflict damage on the US and its’ allies in the Middle East region.

But Mr Kirby said any US response should not factor into what happens with the talks, either

“There’s no reason why our work on a hostage deal needs to be affected or impacted by what happened over the weekend or what we do about what happened over the weekend,” he said.

“We still want to keep the work going [with] our shoulders to the wheel on this hostage deal, and we’ll just have to see where it goes,” he added.

The US-led talks have reportedly brought Israeli and Hamas leaders closer to a deal that would see Israel pause hostilities in the Gaza Strip for roughly two months, with Hamas releasing more than 100 of the hostages it has held since the 7 October terrorist attacks plunged the region into tumult and killed more than 1,000 Israelis. The Israeli response to the attacks have killed more than 25,000 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Mr Biden has repeatedly dispatched top emissaries from his administration, including Mr Burns and Middle East envoy Brett McGurk, to the region for talks with officials from Egypt and Qatar who have served as intermediaries between the US, Israel and Hamas.

Last week the president spoke separately with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, Qatar’s prime minister, about the ongoing conflict and their respective countries’ roles in the efforts to secure the release of the hostages.

Over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government is still committed to securing the freedom of those hostages who were not released during a series of pauses in fighting in November.

“As of today, we have returned 110 of our hostages and we are committed to returning all of them home,” he said. “We are dealing with this and we are doing so around the clock, including now”.