New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has admitted that his office “does not have the independent legal authority” to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.
In a video statement addressing the issue, which had been a key campaign pledge for the Democratic Socialist, he labelled Netanyahu a “war criminal” and accused Israeli forces of deliberately targeting children and civilian infrastructure in Gaza.
"Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal, the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people,” he said.
"He is responsible for the killing of more than 73,000 people, for the maiming of tens of thousands of children...for the targeting of neonatal hospitals and maternity units, denying newborns even the chance to live, for the countless people he starved as he blocked food and humanitarian aid from reaching them.
"The list goes on and on, all as we, as Americans, pay for the bombs that do the killing.”
Mamdani had previously said that, should the Israeli premier attempt to visit the city to attend the UN, the Mayor’s Office would seek to execute the arrest warrant issued for Netanyahu by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2024.
That warrant, which Netanyahu condemned at the time as “a moral outrage of historic proportions”, and another aimed at then-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, accuse both men of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“As human beings, we have spent generations building a shared understanding that there are crimes so grave they offend all of humanity,” Mamdani continued.
"Anyone with their eyes, with their heart, with their conscience, should recognise the devastation [Netanyahu] has wrought and that he belongs in a court of law.
"My administration has reviewed every avenue available under applicable law to determine whether New York City could execute the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant if Benjamin Netanyahu came here.
"It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant.”
Instead, he called on the federal government to enforce the warrant the next time Netanyahu visits the US.
However, the US is not a party to the Rome Statute, which established the court, and has previously disputed the claim that the ICC has jurisdiction within America.
And, earlier this year, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the court, citing allegations of anti-US and anti-Israel bias.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week launched a campaign to “dismantle” the ICC “brick by brick, if necessary” on a similar basis.
In a lengthy op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal, Rubio claimed that the ICC is “backed and run by a powerful network of leftist nongovernmental organisations, smug globalists and hostile Third World governments united by their enmity towards the US”.
Nonetheless, Mamdani added: “Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large.”
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