As the International Court of Justice prepares to take up a petition by South Africa against the genocide of Palestinian people, an Israeli legislator has announced his support for the petition.

Ofer Cassif, a leftist politican from the Hadash-Ta’al party who is a member , has announced that he will support the case against the Israel government as an act of ‘true patriotism’.

“My constitutional duty is to Israeli society and all its residents, not to a government whose members and its coalition are calling for ethnic cleansing and even actual genocide,” Cassif said in a statement.

He said that ‘those who hurt the country’, a reference to the Benjamin Netanyahu government, were responsible for the case filed by South Africa.

Cassif went on to say that he would continue to struggle to make Israel a ‘moral society’.

“That is true patriotism - not wars of revenge and calls for destruction, not unnecessary bloodshed, and not the sacrifice of civilians and soldiers in futile wars,” he added.

Following his remarks, over seventy members of the Knesset have demanded Cassif’s resignation.

A law in the Knesset allows the membership of a legislator to be terminated if 90 MK’s vote against the member. The proceedings can begin after the seventy signatures have been collected.

South Africa filed a case against Israel’s actions in Gaza, which it said amount to war crimes and genocide, on December 29.

The hearing is set to commence on January 11 in the Hague.