American and Hamas officials secretly met numerous times over the last six months, according to a report in the online news website BuzzFeed.

The meetings were held between U.S. intermediaries and Hamas’ leadership, which lives outside the Gaza Strip in third-party countries ranging from Egypt to Qatar and Jordan. Topics included the ceasefire agreement with Israel and the recently formed unity government between Hamas and Fatah.

The report says Hamas gave the necessary assurances to enable Washington to publicly support the new Palestinian government that was agreed upon by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas, which is recognized by the U.S. as a terror organization.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed on June 4th that the Obama Administration would maintain a relationship with the Hamas-backed government.

[B]ased on what we know now about the composition of this technocratic government which has no ministers affiliated with Hamas and is committed to the principles that I described, we will work with it as we need to, as is appropriate.

According to Buzzfeed, State Department deputy spokesperson Mary Harf denied the reports. “These assertions are completely untrue… There is no such back channel. Our position on Hamas has not changed.”

Jerusalem has made no secret of its disappointment with the American position, describing the Palestinian cabinet as “a government of technocrats backed by terrorists, and should be treated as such. With suits in the front office and terrorists in the back office, it should not be business as usual.”

[Photo: U.S. State Dept / Wiki Commons]