Ministers will today formally decide, at the first Cabinet meeting since the general election, whether to intervene in two cases currently before the UN’s top court: South Africa v Israel and The Gambia v Myanmar.

South Africa accuses Israel of breaching the Genocide Convention through acts and omissions which are “intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group, that being the part of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip”.

Tánaiste and foreign affairs minister Micheál Martin previously said the Irish government would intervene in the Israel case after South Africa had filed its memorial, which happened at the end of October.

Mr Martin today told RTÉ News the Irish intervention would argue for “broadening the interpretation” of genocide, which the government believes “encompasses what has happened in Gaza in particular, in terms of both the intent and in terms of the impact of the horrific Israeli attacks on the Palestinian people”.

The government has not set out the details of its arguments in any Irish intervention in the Rohingya genocide case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar.

Ireland previously intervened in the ICJ case taken by Ukraine against the Russian Federation under the Genocide Convention.