Mayor Zohran Mamdani says New York City cannot execute the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but calls on the federal government to enforce the warrant against the “war criminal.”
In a video posted on social media platform X on Tuesday, Mamdani said New York City had reviewed every legal option available and concluded it does not have the independent authority to execute the ICC’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu.
“It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant,” Mamdani said, adding, “The federal government, however, does, and I call on them to join the ICC and execute this warrant.”
Mamdani also described Netanyahu as a “war criminal,” stressing that the Israeli prime minister “is not welcome in New York City,” and adding that the same applies to “any other war criminal at large.”
Earlier this month, Mamdani told the New York Times that he and the city’s legal department had examined whether Netanyahu could be arrested if he attends the UN General Assembly in New York this September.
During last year’s mayoral campaign, he repeatedly pledged to direct the New York Police Department (NYPD) to arrest Netanyahu under the ICC warrant if he entered the city.
US President Donald Trump responded on Monday by declaring on social media that Netanyahu “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America,” following reports that New York officials had explored legal options surrounding the visit.
On November 21, 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant following an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Gaza genocide.
The court said the two bore responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.
Since launching its genocidal assault on Gaza on October 7, 2023, Israel has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians and wounded at least 173,000 others, the majority of them women and children.
