New York Metropolis Mayor Zohran Mamdani conceded late Tuesday that town doesn’t have the authority to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mamdani had vowed throughout his mayoral marketing campaign final 12 months that if Netanyahu visited New York Metropolis, his administration would implement an Worldwide Prison Court docket arrest warrant accusing the Israeli chief of committing conflict crimes throughout Israel’s conflict in opposition to Hamas within the Gaza Strip. Mamdani didn’t again down in current days, saying town would “comply with all relevant native legal guidelines” if Netanyahu visited for the United Nations Common Meeting this fall.
However in a Tuesday night social media video, Mamdani mentioned town had concluded it couldn’t search the Israeli prime minister’s arrest.
“My administration has reviewed each avenue accessible below relevant regulation to find out whether or not New York Metropolis might execute the Worldwide Prison Court docket’s arrest warrant if Benjamin Netanyahu got here right here,” Mamdani mentioned. “It’s clear that we wouldn’t have the unbiased authorized authority to implement this warrant.”
Mamdani referred to as on the federal authorities to arrest Netanyahu as a substitute, calling him a “conflict legal” and the “architect of a horrific genocide in opposition to the Palestinian individuals.”
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon condemned the video, writing on social media: “Zohran Mamdani, ENOUGH. Sufficient with the blood libels.”
“You have been elected to serve New Yorkers, not Hamas’ propaganda,” he wrote.
President Trump wrote Monday on Fact Social that Netanyahu “is not going to be arrested, in any manner, form, or kind, whereas in the USA of America.”
CBS Information has reached out to Netanyahu’s workplace and the White Home for remark.
The US just isn’t a celebration to the worldwide treaty that created the Worldwide Prison Court docket, and usually doesn’t acknowledge its authority.
A prosecutor for the ICC utilized for arrest warrants in opposition to Netanyahu, former Israeli Protection Minister Yoav Gallant and a number of other Hamas officers in Could 2024, following an investigation into each Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror assault on Israel and the Israeli army’s response in Gaza. About 1,200 individuals in Israel have been killed within the Oct. 7 assault and 250 others have been taken hostage, whereas over 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, the Hamas-run Gaza Well being Ministry says.
Judges for the courtroom issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant later in 2024, discovering “affordable grounds” to consider that the 2 Israeli officers disadvantaged the civilian inhabitants of meals, drugs and different humanitarian assist. Former Hamas commander Mohammed Deif, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike, was additionally accused of crimes in opposition to humanity.
Israel has strongly condemned the warrants, with Netanyahu’s workplace saying in 2024 it “rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions and fees in opposition to it by the Worldwide Prison Court docket, which is a biased and discriminatory political physique.”
The Israeli authorities has lengthy defended its conduct within the Gaza Strip, arguing it has tried to guard civilians throughout its intense aerial and floor operations and blaming Hamas for working in densely populated areas. Hamas and Israel agreed to a ceasefire final fall, although some operations have continued, and the Gaza Well being Ministry has mentioned greater than 1,000 individuals have died in the course of the ceasefire.
