New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference at the New York City Office of Emergency Management, as a major winter storm spreads across a large swath of the United States, in Brooklyn, New York City, US, Jan. 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Bing Guan

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani ignited controversy on Wednesday when he accused Israel of orchestrating an “ongoing genocide” in Gaza in a statement commemorating the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel — an attack that many experts have described as an act of genocide against Jews and Israelis.

Taking to social media on the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 atrocities, Mamdani began with a preamble which acknowledged that “Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others,” before he launched a broadside attack against the Jewish state.

“The suffering did not begin nor end that day [Oct. 7],” Mamdani posted, using language that, according to critics, appeared to blame Israel for Hamas’s invasion.

“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,” Mamdani added, using figures supplied by Hamas-controlled health authorities in Gaza that do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Hamas also notoriously conscripts children in its ranks.

Mamdani went on to minimize the year-long ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas brokered by the US, writing that “more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed” during the truce. 

“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,” Mamdani continued. “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.”

Israel adamantly denies allegations of genocide and war crimes more broadly. Officials argue their military has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.

Another challenge for Israel has been Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.

For example, documents from the Gaza Interior Security Mechanism (ISM), a component of the Hamas security apparatus, state that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) “has chosen [to operate] in a wing inside Al-Shifa Hospital that is adjacent to the [Hamas] movement’s offices.”

Analysis of the war has also revealed that many Hamas members pose as doctors, medics, and journalists. Earlier this month, the Israeli army published evidence accusing 170 slain Hamas members of posing as journalists in the Gaza Strip. Reporters Without Borders, a group assembled to document the killings of journalists in Gaza and advocate for their safety, silently deleted a pair of journalists from their list after Hamas claimed them as fighters. 

Current data also suggests the extent of the hunger crisis in Gaza has been greatly overstated. Data provided by UNICEF claims that Gaza has the lowest malnutrition rate in the entire Middle East, on par with several European countries.

“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,” Mamdani added in his Oct. 7 post.

Mamdani, a far-left democratic socialist and anti-Zionist, is an avid supporter of boycotting all Israeli-tied entities who has been widely accused of promoting antisemitic rhetoric. He has repeatedly accused Israel of “apartheid” and “genocide”; refused to recognize the country’s right to exist as a Jewish state; and refused to explicitly condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which has been associated with calls for violence against Jews and Israelis worldwide.

Mamdani’s latest comments set off a firestorm of criticism on social media, with prominent Jewish voices accusing the mayor of hijacking Oct. 7 to launch a condemnable attack against Israel. 

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, head of the Union for Reform Judaism, repudiated Mamani’s statement, accusing the mayor of “turning this anniversary into an indictment of the Jewish state that is not only hurtful, and deeply offensive, but it also makes Jewish New Yorkers less safe.”

US Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) also condemned Mamdani for his statement.

“Desecrating the memory of murdered, innocent Jews today of all days and refusing to even condemn Hamas is obscene. There are 364 other days you can wrongly criticize Israel for defending herself,” Wasserman Schultz posted.

Ofir Akunis, consul general of Israel in New York, rebuked Mamdani’s statement. 

“Anyone with a heart should be ashamed of the response of the Mayor of New York City to the October 7 massacre,” Akunis said. “On that day, monsters invaded the State of Israel on a Jewish holiday. Thousands were murdered, hundreds were kidnapped, innocent civilians were beheaded, and women were raped.”

 “Mamdani, displaying a shocking lack of basic humanity, continues to spread antisemitic blood libels against the Jewish state. New York City should be appalled that its mayor shows such contempt for the memory of those who were murdered,” Akunis concluded.

Rabbi Marc Schneier, president of the New York City-based Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, wrote that Mamdani “fuels hostility toward Jewish New Yorkers. Today, he could have honored the victims and promoted peace and prosperity for Israelis and Palestinians. Instead, he chose to incite hatred.”

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee described Mamdani’s statement as an “outrageous and disgusting rant,” noting that dozens of Americans were among the some 1,200 people murdered during Hamas’s rampage.

“His comments are as insensitive and insulting as saying on the 9/11 anniversary that ‘while we mourn the loss of those murdered by terrorists, we condemn the response of the United States equally,'” Huckabee continued. “There is NO [sic] genocide in Gaza.  The death toll there is due to Hamas having continued to hold hostages (including Americans) and starving, raping, torturing, and killing them. An apology for his obtuse and utterly ignorant remarks is not enough.  God help the people of New York for electing a jihadist sympathizer!”