Can Mamdani arrest Netanyahu?

According to RCO News Agency, New York Mayor Zahran Mamdani emphasized that based on the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and since he is wanted by this court on charges of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, he will issue an arrest warrant as soon as he sets foot in this city.

“Middle East Monitor” analytical base wrote in a report that despite the accusations against Netanyahu, he denied Mamdani’s statements about the execution of his arrest warrant and announced that he is still planning to travel to New York, but the question raised here is whether, from the point of view of international law, the mayor of an American city has the necessary permission to detain a foreign official or not.

In the continuation of this report, it is stated: The International Criminal Court does not have a special mechanism for its implementation and relies on the member states to execute arrest warrants. In 2025, the United States imposed sanctions against the officials of the International Criminal Court, which included blocking their bank accounts and banning them from issuing visas in order to prevent investigations into the crimes of American and Israeli officials in Afghanistan and Palestine.

Middle East Monitor also wrote: When the implementation of the judgments of the International Criminal Court is hindered, international law provides an alternative mechanism and that is universal jurisdiction. This principle allows any country to prosecute people accused of committing serious international crimes such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, regardless of the place where the crimes were committed or the nationality of the perpetrator, several countries including Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, France and Germany successfully used the principle of universal jurisdiction to prosecute foreign officials, including the conviction of former Gambian Interior Minister Osman Sonko for crimes against humanity in 2024.

This analytical database continues its report that the TRIAL International organization says that people who commit major crimes such as war crimes and crimes against humanity cannot enjoy immunity due to their political position, because committing these crimes deprives them of this immunity due to the threat they pose to international peace and security, so the political and diplomatic immunity of Benjamin Netanyahu as a war criminal does not protect him from arrest. As happened in the case of General Augusto Pinochet, the former president of Chile, who was accused of genocide, administrative detention, murder and torture and was arrested in London in October 1998 based on an arrest warrant issued in Spain and within the framework of international jurisdiction.

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