New York mayor explores arresting Netanyahu at UN General Assembly over ICC warrant

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani is exploring whether he can order the arrest of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu when the Israeli leader travels to New York in September for the annual United Nations General Assembly. Mamdani, in an interview with the New York Times published on 18 July, said Netanyahu 'belongs in The Hague' and called him a war criminal. The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in November, with chief prosecutor Karim Khan accusing him of war crimes and crimes against humanity during Israel's military campaign in Gaza. That campaign was launched in response to the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023, which killed around 1,200 people and saw over 200 taken hostage.

Legal authority in question

Mamdani acknowledged he is not certain he has the power to direct the New York Police Department to detain a foreign head of government. He said he is in 'active discussions' with city legal officials.

Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that's what we will do, but we won't be writing our own laws to that end.

The mayor had previously pledged during his campaign to send city police to execute ICC warrants against leaders such as Netanyahu and Russian president Vladimir Putin. If he attempts to act on the threat, it could put him on a collision course with President Donald Trump, with whom he has maintained unexpectedly amicable relations. Washington does not recognise the ICC and Trump imposed sanctions on the court in February 2025, calling its actions 'illegitimate'.

Israeli and US pushback

Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, sharply criticised Mamdani, writing on X that the mayor had chosen to 'stoke hostility and make headlines by attacking the State of Israel' instead of focusing on rising antisemitism in the city. Danon insisted Netanyahu would still come and address the assembly.

This will change nothing. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to New York, speak with pride before the United Nations General Assembly and affirm before the entire world the truth of Israel and its unwavering right to defend its citizens.

Netanyahu himself, in a New York radio interview with Sid Rosenberg, accused Mamdani of backing Hamas and said, 'I think secretly he hates America.' The US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, dismissed the arrest talk as 'political theatre', arguing that neither the US nor Israel is a party to the ICC, that UN rules grant diplomatic protection to visiting leaders, and that federal authorities, not the city, hold jurisdiction.

Mamdani's record

Mamdani, a left-wing Democrat and the city's first Muslim mayor, has long been a vocal critic of Israel. He has described it as an 'apartheid regime' and labelled the Gaza offensive a 'genocide'. At the same time, he has condemned the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023 and has repeatedly spoken out against antisemitism. His stance has drawn both support from pro-Palestinian activists and condemnation from Israeli officials and some US politicians.

The UN General Assembly, the annual gathering of world leaders, is scheduled for September at UN headquarters in New York. Whether Mamdani's legal review will produce a mechanism to act on the ICC warrant remains unclear, but the dispute has already escalated into a diplomatic row weeks before the event.