The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that Israeli parliamentarian Ofer Cassif, from the left-wing Hadash-Ta’al party, was forcibly removed from the Knesset podium on Monday night during a plenary session after quoting renowned Israeli writer and novelist David Grossman, who acknowledged in an interview with the Italian daily La Repubblica last week that, with “‘immense pain and a broken heart”, Israel is currently committing “genocide” in Gaza. “For years I refused to use the term genocide, but now, after the images I’ve seen and after speaking to people who were there, I can no longer avoid it,’” Cassif said in his speech. Haaretz said the session was chaired by deputy Knesset Speaker Nissim Vaturi, who interrupted Cassif, saying “That’s not a quote – that’s made up,” and demanded Cassif be removed from the podium, followed by Likud member Tali Gottlieb who shouted: “He will not say ‘genocide’ in here!” before Knesset ushers physically removed Cassif from the podium.