Mamdani Says He Is Examining Whether His Government Can Arrest Netanyahu During NYC Visit

In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times Saturday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani made clear that he plans to take any action available to him to ensure the city complies with the International Criminal Court's warrant for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if the opportunity arises.

Netanyahu, said Mamdani, "belongs in The Hague," and he is currently examining whether his government has the authority to arrest the prime minister if he visits the city for the United Nations General Assembly in September.

"He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court," said the mayor. "I will follow the laws that we have here in New York City because I believe that there is an importance in following the law as a leader who presides over our city."

He then clarified that "whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do, but we won’t be writing our own laws to that end."

The mayor told Lulu Garcia-Navarro, host of the newspaper's "The Interview," that he is having "an active conversation with our legal department" to determine the scope of Mamdani's authority on the matter.

In November 2024, the ICC issued a warrant for Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, who was killed by Israeli forces. Netanyahu was accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, where Israel began a relentless assault in 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.

Israel and its top military funder, the US government, have insisted that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been targeting Hamas in attacks that are still continuing in Gaza despite a ceasefire that was reached last October.

But evidence has steadily mounted that children, aid workers, refugee camps, schools, and hospitals have been attacked, and experts found last year that Israel was intentionally starving Palestinians in Gaza as a method of warfare.

More than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, and more than 173,000 people have been wounded. Israeli attacks have made Gaza home to the largest number of child amputees in the world, and have decimated over 90% of housing units in the exclave.

Garcia-Navarro questioned Mamdani on the "political weight" he gives to the issue of Israel and Palestine, which has seen a marked shift in US public opinion since Israel began its latest US-backed assault on Gaza. More than half of Democratic voters and nearly a third of all voters told The Associated Press last month that they viewed the war in Gaza as a genocide against Palestinians.

Three-quarters of respondents to a New York Times poll in May said they opposed continuing to send military aid to Israel, compared to 45% three years ago.

"It’s hard to explain to a New Yorker why their needs are not even being discussed, and yet we have billions of dollars to kill civilians halfway across the world," said Mamdani, who has been laser-focused during his term and his campaign last year on lowering the cost of living for New Yorkers and passing universal public programs.

"I think what we have seen from New Yorkers, what we’ve seen from Americans, when we talk about this hunger for a new kind of politics, it’s a hunger to move beyond the bankruptcy that characterizes a lot of politics today," said Mamdani. "And it is hard to find a more bankrupt policy approach than what our country has done to Gaza and to Palestine and how it hasn’t been specific to any one party. It’s been, again and again, an insistence to tell New Yorkers, and to tell Americans, that what they are seeing is not something they should in fact either be concerned by or believe in. It is hard to then turn to another issue and say, Believe me here."

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations said Saturday that Netanyahu will be at the UN meeting in New York City in September, despite Mamdani's threats—which date back to his mayoral campaign—while the prime minister said on a radio show this week that the mayor "hates America" and champions Hamas.

Journalist Mehdi Hasan said it was "pretty amazing to hear" Mamdani repeat his earlier conviction that Netanyahu should be arrested under the ICC warrant, given that he first publicly remarked on the issue "when he was polling at 1% in the Democratic primary polls and no one expected him to actually be mayor."

Netanyahu has thus far evaded arrest when traveling to countries that recognize the ICC's authority under the Rome Statute. The court opened an inquiry into Hungary last year when it failed to detain the prime minister when he visited. France also said it would not execute the warrant for Netanyahu because Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute.

UN Ambassador Michael Waltz responded to Mamdani's interview on Saturday, saying the US is also not party to the Rome Statute.

Journalist Zaid Jilani said that although the mayor of New York likely lacks the authority to arrest Netanyahu, "he can certainly troll him."