Netanyahu's office criticized New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Sunday (19) after the official said he was considering arresting the leader during the UN General Assembly.
“Mr. Mamdani should focus on repairing the damage his policies have caused to New York,” Netanyahu's office said in a post on X.
“Like Karim Khan, Mamdani seems interested in diverting public attention from his follies and attacking the leader of the Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East,” the office added, referring to a former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Mamdani said in an interview published by The New York Times that he is studying, together with the city's legal team, the authority he has as mayor to order the New York Police Department to detain a foreign leader.
“I believe Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani told The New York Times. “He is a war criminal who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court.”
“Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that is what we will do,” said the mayor, weeks before the September UN General Assembly, when world leaders will meet at the organization's headquarters in New York.
Netanyahu's office responded by criticizing Mamdani and also the international court in The Hague, saying that this court has no jurisdiction in the United States or Israel.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant in 2024 against Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity related to Israel's offensive in Gaza after the October 7, 2023 attack carried out by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
“This false arrest warrant against Prime Minister Netanyahu was issued by a disgraced former attorney general, Karim Khan,” Netanyahu's office stressed.
The office said the court published the warrant just days before allegations of sexual abuse against the prosecutor came to light, claiming it was an attempt by Khan to “divert attention.”
