Ireland has formally joined South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, according to a statement Tuesday from the International Court of Justice.

The filing, made Monday, comes months after Ireland announced plans to intervene in the case before the United Nations’ highest judicial body.

“Ireland, invoking Article 63 of the Statute of the Court, filed in the Registry of the Court a declaration of intervention in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip,” the court said in a statement Tuesday.

South Africa brought its case to the ICJ in December 2023, accusing Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. Israel has strongly rejected the allegation, describing South Africa’s filing as a “despicable and contemptuous exploitation of the Court.”

In an initial ruling in January 2024, the court ordered Israel to restrain its attacks in Gaza, and in May it ordered the country to immediately halt its military offensive in the city of Rafah, in southern Gaza.

The United Nations allows countries to “intervene” in proceedings if they are parties to the United Nations’ 1948 Genocide Convention.

A spokesperson for Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed the filing Tuesday. “It is important for the Court, in its consideration of any multilateral convention, to understand how other parties to that convention interpret and apply it,” it said in a statement.

The filing was long anticipated. Last month, the government approved a plan to file its argument in the case, with Micheál Martin, the deputy prime minister and minister for foreign affairs, saying that it would be filed in The Hague, where the court is based, within weeks.