Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani of "fomenting hate", confirming he still intends to attend the UN General Assembly in the city this autumn despite Mamdani's earlier threat to have him arrested. The row centres on a 2024 International Criminal Court warrant accusing Netanyahu of war crimes in Gaza, which Mamdani had pledged during his election campaign to enforce, though he has since admitted he lacks the legal authority to do so.

Speaking to Fox News, Netanyahu said he was "not concerned" about Mamdani's stance and claimed the mayor was turning New Yorkers against one another, citing two stabbings last Thursday in which a Jewish man and an Asian man were attacked, allegedly by a suspect who shouted "Allahu akbar"; both survived, and the attacker faces hate crime charges. Mamdani, a vocal critic of Israel's Gaza campaign who has called Netanyahu a "war criminal", said last week he had reviewed the law and found his administration had no independent power to enforce the ICC warrant, but urged the US federal government to arrest Netanyahu and declared him "not welcome" in the city. Israel denies committing war crimes in Gaza, where the territory's Hamas-run health ministry says more than 73,000 people have been killed since the war began following Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack, which killed about 1,200 people in Israel.