A senior Lebanon-based official in Palestinian group Hamas said Wednesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s continued pursuit of war in Gaza showed the goal was “genocide” against Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s “insistence on continuing the aggression totally confirms that the goal of the aggression on Gaza is genocide against the Palestinian people”, Osama Hamdan told a news conference in Beirut.

“We will exert every effort to protect our people, whether through the resistance on the ground or… political efforts to stop the aggression,” Hamdan added.

Netanyahu on Wednesday dismissed Hamas’s demand for a ceasefire and ordered troops to prepare to move on the city of Rafah in Gaza’s far south, where more than one million Palestinians have sought refuge.

The Israeli leader’s comments appeared to dampen US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s hopes for a ceasefire and hostage release deal, even as he cautioned that more negotiations were needed.