Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his aides rejected a request from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to say publicly that Israel is not carrying out an ethnic cleansing plan in northern Gaza, known as the “generals’ plan,” The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The report said Netanyahu and his top aide Ron Dermer told Blinken that the generals’ plan was “not our policy at all” and that the perception was “very damaging to us.” But when asked to say so publicly, they declined.

The Times of Israel also reported that Netanyahu refused the request to publicly denounce the ethnic cleansing plan.

While Israeli officials have told the United States that they are not implementing an ethnic cleansing plan, Israeli soldiers told Haaretz last week that it is already underway in northern Gaza, where Israel has ordered hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee south and imposed a total blockade. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed in the renewed offensive, which has focused on the Jabaliya refugee camp. The general’s plan calls for the forced evacuation of all Palestinians from northern Gaza. Under the plan, after a certain period of time, the entire north would be declared a closed military zone, and anyone left behind would be killed by military action or by a starvation siege.

Completing the generals’ plan could pave the way for Jewish settlements in Gaza, an idea favored by many Israeli ministers and Knesset members. At a “Gaza Resettlement” conference on Monday, May Golan, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party and minister of social equality, called for a new “Nakba” in Gaza.