Anti-Israel activists accused New York mayor Zohran Mamdani of “genocide” and being a “traitor” when he attended a commemoration event for October 7.
The mayor was met with boos by a crowd of more than 100 demonstrators as he arrived at the event in Union Square in central Manhattan.
As he held a candle, protesters standing a few metres away on the other side of a police barricade banged drums and carried at least one Hezbollah flag.
Mamdani just arrived at an Oct. 7 vigil commemorating Israeli and Palestinian victims that was delayed 40 minutes because of pro-Palestine anti-Mamdani protestors. As Brad Lander reads a testimony from an Israeli victim, protestors chant “we don’t want no 2 state, we want 48” and… pic.twitter.com/Pa8FHzxuUI
The protesters, drowning out the testimonies from bereaved families, shouted insults at Mamdani including accusations of genocide and “selling your people out”.
Footage from the scene posted online showed protesters screaming: “Zohran, what do you say? How many kids did you kill today?
“700,000 dead. Mamdani, your hands are red!" they also chanted.
“Traitor, traitor, come on out! You sold all your people out!”
The crowd also shouted: “Zohran, you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide!
“We don’t care about where you’re from. You cannot talk about being Muslim anymore. You cannot weaponise being brown anymore. Identity politics can only get you so far,” they said.
BREAKING: Fully masked Islamists are now chasing down Zohran Mamdani, and threatening him.
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) October 8, 2026
You have to laugh at the irony of this. pic.twitter.com/a2IDDv5XWD
Mamdani was eventually ushered away by his security team as demonstrators began trying to push the barricades over.
Despite protesters’ accusations of genocide on Wednesday, Mamdani has long been a critic of the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza.
In his own statement marking the anniversary yesterday, Mamdani wrote that October 7 was a day that was “profoundly painful for many New Yorkers”, while also condemning “apartheid” and the use of American tax dollars to fund “war crimes”.
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