US President Donald Trump rejected New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's declared plans to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America," the President stated in a post on Truth Social.
According to Trump, Netanyahu 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."
He further insisted that "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!"
In an interview with The New York Times, published Saturday, Mamdani said, "I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague. He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court."
Mamdani also said that he is in "active conversation" with NYC's legal officials on whether he may arrest a foreign leader, adding, "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 Prime Minister's Office responded to Mamdani's statement: "The ICC is a kangaroo court that has no jurisdiction over Americans or Israelis. Its bogus arrest warrant against Prime Minister Netanyahu was issued by a disgraced former ICC Prosecutor, Karim Khan, a few days before allegations of sexual misconduct against him became public. It was a clear attempt by Khan to divert public attention and seek protection from scrutiny."
"Under Prime Minister Netanyahu's leadership, Israel has taken unprecedented wartime measures to minimize harm to civilians while confronting Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that uses Palestinians as human shields and deliberately targets innocent Israeli civilians," the office clarified.
"Instead of backing Khan's criminal behaviour, Mr. Mamdani should focus on fixing the damage his policies have caused New York. Like Karim Khan, Mamdani appears interested in diverting public attention from his follies and attacking the leader of the Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East," the tweet concluded.