Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin 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.<\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking in Tel Aviv hours after meeting Netanyahu, said he still saw “space for agreement to be reached” and that he had warned the Israeli leader against actions and talk that “inflame tensions”.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu had told a televised briefing that he had ordered troops to “prepare to operate” in Rafah and that a “total victory” by Israel over Hamas was just months away.<\/p>\n
But he warned that accepting the Palestinian militant group’s “bizarre demands” for a ceasefire would not lead to the return of hostages, charging that “it will only invite another massacre”.<\/p>\n
In Beirut, a senior Hamas official responded, saying Netanyahu’s “insistence on continuing the aggression totally confirms that the goal… is genocide against the Palestinian people”.<\/p>\n
The official, Osama Hamdan, urged “all resistance factions… to continue the fight” and to be cautious of Israeli “treachery during the final quarter-hour of this confrontation”.<\/p>\n