However, he urged federal authorities to arrest the Israeli leader.
The announcement came days after Mamdani had told The New York Times that he was working with his administration’s legal team on how to arrest the Israeli PM for war crimes during and after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel in 2023.
Netanyahu may visit New York in September to attend the United Nations General Assembly.
Zohran Mamdani’s promise to arrest Netanyahu
During his mayoral campaign last year, Mamdani had vowed to arrest Netanyahu if he came to New York and enforce an International Criminal Court warrant that accused the Israeli leader of committing war crimes. The 34-year-old has been a fierce critic of Netanyahu.
Mamdani had told the New York Times last year that he would direct the New York Police Department to enforce the ICC warrant against Netanyahu. He has repeatedly called the Israeli prime minister a war criminal and labelled Tel Aviv’s actions in Gaza as a genocide, as per Politico. The US does not recognise the ICC’s jurisdiction and is not a party to the court.
A few days ago, Mamdani had doubled down on his poll promise and added that he believes “Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” a reference to the Dutch city where the ICC warrant was issued.
Speaking on the possibility of Netanyahu’s arrest, Mamdani had said, “That’s an active conversation with our legal department. However, what we’ve seen at the national level is a desire sometimes to write your own laws, to go outside of the bounds of legality. That’s not something we have an interest in.”
How Donald Trump reacted to Mamdani’s statement
The comments drew the ire of US President Donald Trump, who stated that Netanyahu would “not be arrested” on US soil. In a social media post, Trump claimed that the Israeli leader was “fighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran”. Trump claimed that “the only ones that should be arrested are the people that led Iran into this unprecedented spiral of death and destruction”.
Netanyahu had said he was “not concerned” about Mamdani’s comments, as per The Guardian.
What Zohran Mamdani said on poll promise
In his latest video, Mamdani said that his administration did not have the ‘independent legal authority’ to arrest Netanyahu and enforce the ICC warrant. The NYC mayor said that his team had looked at “every avenue available under applicable law” to determine if the city could execute the international criminal court’s arrest warrant. He called on the US federal government to “join the ICC and execute this warrant.”
“And I want to be equally clear: Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large,” Mamdani added.
Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal. pic.twitter.com/YRezmW6YVx
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) July 22, 2026
In 2024, a prosecutor for the ICC applied for arrest warrants against Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and several Hamas officials after an investigation into Hamas’ October 7, 2023, terror attack and the Israeli military’s response in Gaza. Around 1,200 people in Israel were killed in attacks by Hamas and 250 others were taken hostage, CBS reported Almost 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
