Mamdani threatens to arrest war criminal | Political News

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani threatened to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he units foot in the Big Apple, branding him a “war criminal.”

The Democratic socialist said in a Saturday episode of the New York Times’s “The Interview” podcast that he is reviewing whether or not his administration even has the ability to arrest Netanyahu if he arrives as anticipated for the United Nations General Assembly in September.

It’s not the first time Mamdani has made such feedback, either — he told the NYT during his marketing campaign last yr that he’d order the New York Police Department to arrest him if he ever set foot in NYC.

“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani said in the Saturday interview. “He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court, and what you will find is that is an opinion that is held by many, purely because of what his actions have wrought over these past many years.”

The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in November 2024, alleging war crimes in Gaza — which he is been bombarding for almost three years after Hamas launched an assault on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people who attended a music competition or who sheltered with their households in kibbutzim close to the Jewish state’s border with Gaza.

Netanyahu’s bombardment has led to the deaths of over 73,200 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian News & Info Agency (also identified as WAFA), with the Israeli Defense Forces concentrating on hospitals and other areas designated as secure zones.

The ICC’s warrant for Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders accuses them of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including “starvation as a method of warfare, and … murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

Mamdani said it is unclear to him at the second whether or not he has the legal authority to order the NYPD to arrest a international chief like Netanyahu. It stays “an active conversation” with the division about the matter, he said.

“Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do,” Mamdani said. “But we won’t be writing our own laws to that end.”

During his mayoral marketing campaign, Mamdani called Israel’s army actions in Gaza a genocide, though he added that he believes the Oct. 7 Hamas assault was also a “horrific war crime.”

Does Mamdani have the legal authority to arrest Netanyahu?

Legal consultants told the NYT that Netanyahu’s arrest in NYC “would be a practical impossibility” for Mamdani, as it might deliver him into direct battle with the federal authorities.

The U.S. is not a celebration to the ICC, and it does not acknowledge its authority. That means the ICC holds no jurisdiction in the U.S., which means it might probably’t make arrests in the nation unless the federal government agrees to cooperate with it in sure circumstances.

In February 2025, in the early days of his second time period, President Donald Trump ordered financial sanctions against the ICC, sustaining its lack of jurisdiction in the U.S. and in Israel — which also does not acknowledge the court.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio just lately vowed to “dismantle” the court, accusing the ICC of “waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles” but with “the force of so-called international law.”