NEW YORK (WABC) — Mayor Zohran Mamdani released a statement on the three-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel.
Mamdani faces renewed scrutiny over his views on the war. He has condemned the Oct. 7 attacks while also sharply criticizing Israel’s response and describing it as a genocide.
His statement on Wednesday said the suffering did not begin nor end that day, and “it has continued through Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
This day is profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers. It marks three years since the horrific war crimes of October 7. 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. 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. Even since the so-called ceasefire, more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed. That suffering has intensified with every Israeli bomb dropped on ambulances waiting outside hospitals, every drone strike targeting a residential building or journalist, and every shipment of food aid turned away at a border crossing. Many New Yorkers are reckoning with this unbearable grief, and we mourn alongside them – all while knowing that our tax dollars fund these war crimes. Three years later, we must refuse to accept a world in which occupation and apartheid continue, where war crimes are met with impunity, and our federal government continues its complicity with every arms shipment. To honor the dead, we must fight for a world in which every person can live with freedom, safety, and dignity.
It is Mamdani’s first Oct. 7 anniversary as mayor, and his planned appearances throughout the day are expected to draw close attention from both supporters and critics.
The attack by Hamas killed nearly 1,200 people and resulted in 251 hostages being taken. Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza has resulted in thousands of Palestinian deaths.
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