Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will spend only about seven hours on U.S. soil for his UN General Assembly address after senior security officials urged him to keep the trip as short as possible, citing concrete warnings, Channel 13 reported.
Under the plan, his plane lands in New Jersey, he goes straight to UN headquarters, and he flies back to Israel right after his speech.
The trip lands in the middle of an open feud with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. In a CNN interview this week, Mamdani called Netanyahu "a war criminal and an architect of a horrific genocide of the Palestinian people," while acknowledging that the city has no legal authority to enforce the ICC warrant against him.
Netanyahu fired back: "Shame on you for supporting the Hamas terrorist monsters who butchered our people. Shame on you for inciting riots against New York Jews." He promised to address the mayor from the UN podium.
Mamdani, meanwhile, is facing criticism for how quiet he has been about another visitor. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian arrived in New York on Wednesday. Iranian-born journalist Masih Alinejad, the target of an alleged Iranian murder-for-hire plot near her Brooklyn home, challenged the mayor directly: "If you have the courage to talk about arresting those responsible for crimes against humanity, start with the man sleeping five miles from your office."
Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, made the same point, noting that the one leader Mamdani singles out is "the leader of the Jewish State of Israel."
Mamdani has previously called Iran's government "brutal" and cited its "systematic repression of its own people," but has not directed similar language at Pezeshkian.
