Mamdani Says the City's Hands Are Tied — and Turns the Warrant Over to Washington
After concluding New York cannot arrest Netanyahu itself, the mayor calls on the federal government to enforce the ICC warrant — and Trump vows the Israeli PM 'will not be arrested'
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has said the city cannot itself execute the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but has called on the federal government to enforce it against the man he described as a “war criminal.”
In a video posted on X on Tuesday, Mamdani said the city had reviewed every legal option available and concluded it lacked the independent authority to act. “It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant,” he said. “The federal government, however, does, and I call on them to join the ICC and execute this warrant.” Netanyahu, he added, “is not welcome in New York City” — and nor was “any other war criminal at large.”
From City Hall to the White House
The statement followed weeks of scrutiny over whether Netanyahu could be detained should he attend the UN General Assembly in New York this September. Earlier this month, Mamdani told the New York Times that he and the city’s legal department had examined the question, and during last year’s mayoral campaign he had repeatedly pledged to direct the New York Police Department to arrest the Israeli premier under the ICC warrant if he entered the city.
President Donald Trump moved to foreclose that possibility on Monday, declaring on social media that Netanyahu “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America,” after reports that New York officials had explored the legal options around the visit.
The warrant
The ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli military affairs minister Yoav Gallant on 21 November 2024, following an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the war on Gaza. The court found that the two bore responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and for the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.
Since launching its assault on Gaza on 7 October 2023, Israel has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians and wounded at least 173,000 others, the majority of them women and children.
Reference: PressTv