Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he intends to attend the UN General Assembly in New York this autumn, despite earlier threats from the city's mayor, Zohran Mamdani, to have him arrested.
Mamdani withdrew that threat last week, acknowledging he does not have the legal authority to arrest Netanyahu under a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, the world's top war crimes tribunal.
Netanyahu turns on Mamdani
Speaking to Fox News on Sunday, the Israeli leader said he was "not worried" about Mamdani's earlier statement and accused the mayor of "fomenting hate." He said Mamdani was supposed to be "the mayor of all New Yorkers, Jews, Christians, Muslims, everyone," but was instead trying to turn one community against another.
Netanyahu referred to two stabbing attacks that took place in New York on Thursday, in which a suspect stabbed a Jewish man and an Asian man within a few blocks of each other. Police said the suspect has been charged with hate crimes in connection with both victims. Both men survived the attacks, which drew condemnation from the city's Jewish and Asian American community leaders.
In the aftermath, Netanyahu said Jewish residents of New York "feel fear right now."
The Netanyahu arrest warrant
Mamdani, a strong supporter of Palestinian rights, made his opposition to the Israeli military operation in Gaza a central plank of his mayoral campaign last year. In a speech last week, he called Netanyahu a "war criminal."
As part of that campaign platform, Mamdani had pledged to enforce the arrest warrant issued for Netanyahu by the International Criminal Court in 2024, which charged the Israeli prime minister with committing war crimes in Gaza.
Israel has denied the accusations that it has committed war crimes in Gaza, and Netanyahu has called the charges "false."
The Israeli military entered Gaza after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. More than 73,000 people have since been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza, including more than 21,000 children, according to the territory's health ministry, which is run by Hamas and whose figures are considered credible by the UN.
Last week, after the New York Times pressed Mamdani on his commitment to arrest Netanyahu, he said his administration had reviewed the law and concluded that "we do not have the independent legal authority to execute this warrant."
Mamdani urged the federal government to arrest the prime minister instead, adding that "Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York."
Source: BBC
