The White House has said it will keep working to end Middle East violence despite an announcement by Hamas that it had broken off truce talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas.
But White House national security spokesman Mr Michael Anton described the radical Islamic group as an "enemy of peace.
"We will continue to work with the parties to try to bring peace to the region," Mr Anton said after Hamas announced it had ended negotiations with Abbas.
Mr Abbas had been in talks with Hamas in a bid to end anti-Israeli attacks as called for under the "road-map" to creating a Palestinian state living at peace with Israel as early as 2005.
President George W. Bush just returned from his first Middle East peace summits amid optimism in his administration that Mr Abbas will do more to quell extremist violence than has Yasser Arafat, whom the US leader has shunned.
The statement by Hamas was accompanied by calls for demonstrations in the Gaza Strip today against the "dangerous results" of this week's US-Israeli-Palestinian summit in Jordan.
AFP