New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in an interview published Saturday that he is still actively exploring whether city authorities could arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should the Israeli leader travel to Manhattan in September for the United Nations General Assembly.
Speaking to The New York Times Magazine, Mamdani said the question is the subject of "an active conversation" with the city's legal department, though he stopped short of repeating his earlier campaign pledge to directly order Netanyahu's arrest.
"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." He went on to reiterate his support for the International Criminal Court's warrant against Netanyahu, calling the Israeli prime minister a "war criminal" who "belongs in The Hague." Mamdani also accused Israel of committing "genocide" in Gaza.
The ICC issued its arrest warrant for Netanyahu in November 2024, alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity tied to Israel's military campaign in Gaza, a campaign launched in response to Hamas's October 7, 2023 massacre of Israelis. Mamdani has cited that warrant repeatedly as the legal basis for his threats, dating back to his 2025 mayoral campaign, when he said he would direct the NYPD to enforce it.
Any attempt by city authorities to actually detain Netanyahu would run into serious legal obstacles. The United States has never ratified the Rome Statute that established the ICC and does not recognize the court's jurisdiction, and federal law separately bars American officials from cooperating with the court or from detaining visiting foreign heads of state. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has previously said flatly that the mayor does not have the power to carry out such an arrest, and legal experts have widely described Mamdani's threat as baseless. President Donald Trump condemned Mamdani's original 2025 threat as "inappropriate" and said he would personally intervene if Mamdani tried to follow through.
Netanyahu has shown no indication that he intends to alter his travel plans and has said he is "not afraid" to visit New York. Speaking on the radio program "Sid & Friends in the Morning," the prime minister addressed Mamdani's threats directly, accusing the mayor of siding with Hamas in the aftermath of October 7. "Who does he champion? Hamas, that calls openly to massacre every Jew on earth, that conducted that horrible massacre, the worst massacre on Jews since the Holocaust," Netanyahu said, adding that Mamdani should reconsider "who he's condemning, who he's praising."
Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon has likewise reaffirmed that Netanyahu intends to address the General Assembly as planned, and has accused Mamdani of stoking hostility.
Netanyahu is widely expected to attend this year's General Assembly, which falls the month before Israel's next election and could represent one of his final appearances on the world stage in his current term.
