A survivor of the Hamas terrorist attack at the Nova music festival fired back at New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani after he released a video calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "war criminal" and demanding his arrest.
Mazal Tazazo, who survived the October 7, 2023, massacre near Kibbutz Re'im, Israel, posted a video response one day after Mamdani's social media broadside, and she did not hold back. Fox News Digital reported that Tazazo called Mamdani's remarks "dangerous" and directly challenged his characterization of the conflict as genocide.
Mamdani had posted a video on X earlier in the week declaring that his administration had "reviewed every avenue available under applicable law" to determine whether New York City could execute the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant against Netanyahu. His conclusion: the city lacks the legal authority to do so. But instead of stopping there, Mamdani called on the federal government to "join the ICC and execute this warrant", and labeled Netanyahu "the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people."
Tazazo's response cut through the mayor's rhetoric with firsthand experience.
"I was shocked today when I saw that video. It's so dangerous."
She went further, disputing the genocide label directly.
"What's happening there is not genocide. People died. Yes, this is a war. It's very sad. But why? Because the terrorists hide behind their people."
That framing, terrorists embedding among civilians, aligns with longstanding Israel Defense Forces statements that Hamas uses civilian buildings as cover for military activity. Tazazo then extended an open invitation to the mayor to visit Israel and hear her story for himself.
"If you want to really want to understand what's going on here, so come. I'm Mazal Tazazo, nice to meet you, survivor of the Nova. You can come to Israel, nobody gonna arrest you, OK? You can come to Israel and hear my story and hear the story of Israel and go around the place."
The mayor's video amounted to a public retreat from a high-profile campaign promise. Mamdani had previously told the New York Times he was exploring arresting Netanyahu if the Israeli prime minister traveled to New York City for the U.N. General Assembly in September. That pledge helped him shore up support on the far left. Now he was admitting it was never legally possible.
The legal obstacles were not close calls. National Review noted that the American Servicemembers' Protection Act explicitly prohibits any state or local government agency from cooperating with the ICC. On top of that, Netanyahu would be immune from arrest under the 1946 U.N. Convention on Privileges and Immunities while traveling to or from the General Assembly.
None of this was obscure or hard to find. Any competent legal review would have surfaced these barriers before a candidate made the promise, not months after he took office. Mamdani reversed the pledge only after his own administration confirmed the obvious.
The ICC itself carries its own credibility problems. The United States, Israel, and the Palestinian territories are not signatories to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the court. And as Breitbart reported, ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan was suspended in June following a two-year sexual harassment investigation, a fact Mamdani's video did not mention.
The backlash was not limited to Tazazo. Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon issued a blistering response.
"Zohran Mamdani, ENOUGH. Enough with the blood libels. Enough with the attacks on Jewish organizations. Enough with the outreach to the Iranian regime. You were elected to serve New Yorkers, not Hamas propaganda. Do your job!"
The Israeli Consul General struck a similar note, as the New York Post reported: "Mayor Mamdani knew that he does not have legal authority to arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu, yet he continues with his blood libels against Israel. He should start focusing on the people of his city instead of meddling in matters he doesn't understand."
Mamdani's video also made sweeping claims about casualties. He asserted that Netanyahu is "responsible for the killing of more than 73,000 people" and "the maiming of tens of thousands of children," including allegations about amputations without anesthesia and the targeting of neonatal hospitals. These are Mamdani's own characterizations, presented without sourcing in his video, and they track closely with figures promoted by Hamas-run health authorities, numbers that have faced persistent questions about methodology and reliability.
Notably absent from Mamdani's two-minute video: any mention of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack that killed roughly 1,200 Israelis and took more than 250 hostages. The massacre at the Nova music festival, the same attack Tazazo survived, did not rate a single word from the mayor of a city with one of the largest Jewish populations in the world.
The Netanyahu pledge is not an isolated case. Mamdani has faced mounting criticism for a string of campaign commitments that have stalled or collapsed since he took office. The New York Post cataloged several: free bus rides, corporate and income tax hikes, city-owned grocery stores, and a $1 billion community safety program intended to replace parts of the NYPD. None have materialized.
Meanwhile, real governing problems have festered. A Legionnaires' disease outbreak on Manhattan's Upper East Side killed a fifth New Yorker while critics accused Mamdani of being slow to respond. Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf put it bluntly: "Legionnaires' disease knocks off Manhattanites and the best this guy can do is to pretend he's got powers that he doesn't."
The mayor has also drawn fire for his confrontational sanctuary-city posture, which has put City Hall on a collision course with federal immigration enforcement. And his proposed tax hikes have drawn scrutiny for their potential impact on homeowners across the city, including in communities of color, a concern explored in detail here.
Mamdani also called on President Trump and the federal government to execute the ICC warrant, a request the Washington Examiner characterized as "highly unlikely," given Trump's public defense of Netanyahu and the administration's clear stance against ICC jurisdiction over allied leaders.
The mayor's political base on the far left has its own fractures. His ties to the Democratic Socialists of America have drawn pointed criticism from within his own party, including from the Queens borough president, who compared the DSA to white supremacists in a public rift that underscored the ideological tensions inside New York City's Democratic establishment.
Radio host Jason Rantz, who shared Tazazo's video on X, wrote that she "absolutely unloaded on Zohran Mamdani for threatening to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu." The video has circulated widely in conservative and pro-Israel media circles.
Tazazo's invitation, come to Israel, hear the survivors, see the places, remains unanswered. She did not call Mamdani names. She did not threaten him. She asked him to listen. That a survivor of a terrorist massacre had to remind a sitting American mayor that the people who attacked her were the aggressors, not the prime minister defending against them, tells you everything about where Mamdani's priorities actually sit.
New York City has real problems, disease outbreaks, broken infrastructure promises, rising costs, and federal standoffs. Its mayor spent the week making videos about an arrest warrant he cannot enforce, for a court his own country does not recognize, against a leader whose nation was attacked on the worst day in its modern history. The city deserves better than social media activism dressed up as governance.
