Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office hit back on Sunday after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a recent interview that he was reviewing ways to arrest the Israeli leader if he comes to New York.

In a statement, the Prime Minister’s Office called the International Criminal Court — which issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in 2024 over the war in Gaza — “a kangaroo court that has no jurisdiction over Americans or Israelis,” and accused Mamdani of seeking to distract the public from his own failed policies.

The ICC’s “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,” Netanyahu’s office continued. “It was a clear attempt by Khan to divert public attention and seek protection from scrutiny.”

Israel, said the PMO, “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.”

“Instead of backing Khan’s criminal behavior, Mr. Mamdani should focus on fixing the damage his policies have caused New York,” the statement continued.

“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,” it said of the ICC chief prosecutor who filed the charges against Netanyahu and then-defense minister Yoav Gallant.

Since the arrest warrants were issued in November 2024, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, was suspended, following a probe into accusations of sexual harassment made against him. A full vote by member states on his dismissal is slated for this week.

Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman on Sunday called Mamdani a........

© The Times of Israel