Foreign Office forced to clarify that government officials have not held meetings with Hamas

"Discussions have focused on supporting the Palestinian Authority as the legitimate governing body on the vital reforms they have committed to make.”

She added: “We have made clear that Hamas will play no future role in the governance of a Palestinian state.”

Leigh told the JC he thought the government was being “being a little disingenuous in its answers”.

Leigh, the president of Westminster Synagogue and the Institute of Jewish Policy Research, has since followed up his initial query and is urging ministers to “specifically clarify if, and often, they have met, or had discussions with, members or representatives from Hamas since 7 October 2023”.

The government’s response was also criticised by former cabinet minister Lord Pickles for being “opaque on so many levels”.

The chair of Conservative Friends of Israel added: “If it was designed to avoid answering an embarrassing question, it has failed. One would hope that the UK government contacted Hamas to demand the release of the hostages, or, since the ceasefire, to demand that they stop their murderous campaign against opponents in Gaza and disarm. Both approaches would have been commendable.

"But if they are actively engaged in any talks with Hamas about the daily governance of Gaza or the distribution of aid, that would further undermine trust in the region of the UK government, which is at an all-time low.”

He went on to urge the government to “immediately come clean and give a clear answer on the number of times it has had talks with Hamas”.

After being contacted by the JC, the government clarified that officials had not, in fact, met with representatives from Hamas.

A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesperson told the JC: “As you can see from Hansard, Baroness Chapman was crystal clear that Hamas can have no future role in the governance of a Palestinian state – and we do not engage with them.

“No officials have met with Hamas since October 7, 2023.

“The UK Government has a long-standing policy of no contact with Hamas, which is proscribed in its entirety.”

Hamas has been fully proscribed as a terrorist organisation since 2021. Prior to that, UK law had distinguished between the group’s military and political wings, though it had maintained a “no contact” policy towards the political wing.

Earlier this year, the Daily Express reported that British officials had met Hamas operatives in 2022.

According to translations of the documents by pro-Israel watchdog group NGO Monitor, the purpose of the meeting was to "reassure Hamas officials that the resolution of the UK to ban Hamas and designate it as a terror group shall not impact the projects funded by the UK government".

The Foreign Office did not deny that the meeting took place but said instead that: “a member of staff was summoned by the Hamas-run police to explain the UK’s work in Gaza.

“Refusal to attend the summons would not have been an option. This incident in no way represents a breach of the UK’s asset freeze against the entirety of Hamas, nor our no-contact policy with the terrorist group.”

It comes after, earlier this year, Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, held face-to-face conversations with members of Hamas as part of efforts to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza.

Speaking on CBS’ 60 Minutes, Witkoff revealed that he shared a moment of connection he shared with Hamas’ chief negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya, whose son was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Doha.

He said: “We expressed our condolences to him for the loss of his son… And I told him that I had lost a son, and that we were both members of a really bad club: parents who had buried children.”

Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and advisor to the president who was interviewed alongside Witkoff, added: “When Steve and him spoke about their sons, it turned from a negotiation with a terrorist group to seeing two human beings kind of showing a vulnerability with each other.”