Washington, DC [US], July 21 (ANI): US President Donald Trump said Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “will not be arrested while in the United States of America” after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said his administration is examining legal avenues to detain the Israeli leader.
The diplomatic dispute intensified after Mamdani told The New York Times that Netanyahu was a “war criminal” who “belongs in The Hague.”
The New York City mayor said municipal officials are engaged in an “active conversation” with the city’s Law Department to determine the extent of the city’s legal authority should the Israeli prime minister visit New York.
“Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do,” Mamdani said, adding that his office is not attempting to enact new local laws to enforce such a measure.
“Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America. He is fighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which recently killed 52,000 innocent protestors, and has spent the last 47 years killing American Soldiers, and others. The only ones that should be arrested are the people that led Iran into this unprecedented SPIRAL OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION, something that should have been dealt with years ago, by previous Presidents! President DONALD J. TRUMP,” Trump wrote.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office strongly criticized Mamdani’s remarks.
In a statement issued Sunday, the office dismissed the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant against Netanyahu as “bogus” and described the court as a “kangaroo court” with no jurisdiction over either Israel or the United States. The statement also alleged that former ICC prosecutor Karim Khan initiated the warrant to divert attention from subsequent allegations of sexual misconduct against him.
In a sharply worded statement posted on X, the Prime Minister’s Office accused Mamdani of following Khan’s strategy by targeting Israel to distract from domestic governance issues in New York.
“Instead of backing Khan’s criminal behaviour, Mr. Mamdani should focus on fixing the damage his policies have caused New York,” the statement said, adding that the mayor was preoccupied with targeting “the leader of the Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East.”
The Israeli government also defended its ongoing military operations in Gaza, saying its armed forces had implemented “unprecedented wartime measures” to reduce civilian casualties while fighting Hamas, which it accused of using civilians as human shields.
The legal dispute stems from arrest warrants issued by the ICC in November 2024 against Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, citing alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict.
Israel has consistently denied the allegations and challenged the court’s jurisdiction. The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute, meaning Washington has no international legal obligation to detain or extradite individuals sought by the ICC. (ANI)
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