20 hours agoMamdani reacts to backlash over his Oct. 7 actions, says as mayor, ‘this is what I signed up for’
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani doubled down Thursday in accusing Israel of waging a genocide in Gaza after being criticized over a statement he released yesterday on the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks while also being called a “traitor” by anti-Israel protesters.
Mamdani, during the anniversary of the attacks on Wednesday, released a statement saying three years ago, “on that day, Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others.
“We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that unthinkable loss,” Mamdani said. “The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza, in which it has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians — including more than 21,000 children,” he continued.
Mamdani later was heckled by anti-Israel protesters as he attended a vigil for the Oct. 7, 2023, victims, despite being a longtime critic of the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza.
“I was proud to attend last night’s vigil, as I did last year, to listen to testimonies from family members of those who were killed on Oct. 7 and those who’ve been killed in the three years since, and all of whom united in a vision for peace and an end to the genocide in Gaza. And when we’re speaking of that genocide, we’re speaking of one that has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians in the last three years,” Mamdani told reporters Thursday. “As for those protesting me, I am the mayor of New York City, and this is what I signed up for.
“And I’ve been very clear, both as a candidate as well as the mayor of our city, of my firm belief that we have to extend human rights to all people and that has to include Palestinians. And that as Americans, we have a special responsibility, given our federal government’s complicity in funding so much of the weaponry that has been used over these last three years,” Mamdani continued.
“And we also know that when we are commemorating the anniversary, three years of horrific war crimes, three years since Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted hundreds more, three years of an anniversary that has brought unthinkable devastation to so many that also the Israeli government used and continues to use that day, those war crimes, as a justification for an ongoing genocide against Palestinians.
“This is something that has shattered the lives of so many New Yorkers, whether in those who I was standing alongside at the vigil, recounting their own family members who were killed, or reading the testimonies of Palestinians whose family members have been killed, or the then-Palestinian New Yorkers that I met soon after that vigil who shared with me — for example, a Palestinian-Christian nurse here in New York City sharing with me that she lost 17 of her family members when the Israeli military bombed a church,” Mamdani said. “It has devastated people’s lives across our city.”
Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion contributed to this post.