He demands the warrant be enforced but US law bars Washington from doing it
New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has released a video branding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a ‘war criminal’ and the ‘architect of a horrific genocide’. He demanded the federal government arrest Netanyahu on the International Criminal Court warrant. In the same video, he admitted his own administration cannot do anything at all.
Mamdani pledged during his 2025 campaign to ‘order the NYPD to arrest’ Netanyahu if he set foot in the city. Now in office, his line is very different: ‘my administration has reviewed every avenue’ and ‘we do not have the independent legal authority’. Instead he called on Washington to ‘join the ICC and execute this warrant’, and declared Netanyahu ’not welcome in New York City’.
The numbers behind the video
Mamdani cited 73,000 killed in Gaza. That figure comes from the Gaza Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas and does not separate fighters from civilians. Its cumulative count passed 73,000 by mid-2026. The Israeli military has assessed the overall total as broadly accurate in some contexts while disputing the civilian breakdown. Earlier tallies ranged from around 40,000 to more than 70,000, and there is no single verified total. The Israeli military and some analysts argue the fighter-to-civilian ratio compares well with other urban wars. UN bodies reject that reading and point to mass civilian deaths.
His claim that ‘hundreds of aid workers and journalists’ were ‘gunned down’ runs ahead of the trackers. The Committee to Protect Journalists and UN monitors put confirmed deaths in the dozens for each group, not hundreds, though the true figures are contested and hard to verify in wartime. The ‘amputation without anaesthesia’ line has circulated widely but has never been independently verified at scale.
On genocide, the legal picture is genuinely split. No court has made a final ruling, and the International Court of Justice case remains at the provisional stage. Israel says its campaign targets Hamas after the 7 October 2023 massacre, not the Palestinian people as such. Against that, a UN Commission of Inquiry said in June 2026 that Israel continues to commit genocide and has deliberately attacked maternity and neonatal facilities. Israel rejects the finding. Mamdani presented one side of a contested legal question as settled fact.
Mamdani presented one side of a contested legal question as settled fact.
The same applies to hospitals and journalists. Israeli investigations say strikes hit Hamas command posts, tunnels, and rocket sites, and that some of those described as journalists or aid workers were embedded with fighters. UN bodies and press freedom groups dispute this. Both positions exist. The video acknowledged neither dispute.
What the law actually says
The ICC issued its warrant for Netanyahu in November 2024 for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, as the BBC reported at the time. But the United States is not a party to the Rome Statute that created the court. The American Service-Members’ Protection Act of 2002 restricts US cooperation with the ICC, particularly where allies are concerned. Visiting heads of government hold immunity, and federal law overrides city police powers. No New York officer can lawfully execute an ICC warrant against a visiting prime minister, and no mayor can bar a head of government from the city that hosts the United Nations.
Every one of those barriers existed when Mamdani made his campaign pledge. Nothing in the law has changed. What changed is that he now holds the office and has to say so.
From campaign pledge to political theatre
Netanyahu is expected in New York in September for the UN General Assembly, as he has attended repeatedly under previous US administrations. In this paper’s judgement, the video is built for that moment: a demand made in the knowledge it will not be granted. No equivalent video from the mayor has been found on other ongoing mass atrocities, on Hamas’ 7 October attack, its use of human shields, or the hostages it still holds, though no comprehensive record of his statements exists to settle the point.
The risk to New York’s Jewish community
New York has the largest Jewish population of any city outside Israel. Antisemitic incidents there have stayed elevated since 7 October 2023. The ADL’s latest New York audit recorded 1,218 incidents in 2023, the highest in the country, and 2025 levels remained roughly double pre-attack figures even after a 19% fall. A mayor declaring the elected leader of the Jewish state uniquely criminal, in that city, at that moment, carries a cost. Meanwhile the city’s own problems of crime, housing, and the budget get no video at all.
Netanyahu will almost certainly land in New York in September. The NYPD will not be waiting at the airport, and the mayor has now told the world why.
