File photo: New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani attends a vigil marking the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks on Israel Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani ’s statement marking the third anniversary of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel has drawn criticism from both sides of the US political divide.
Mamdani’s statement began by calling October 7, 2023, a “profoundly painful” day and condemning Hamas’ “horrific war crimes”, including the killing of about 1,200 people in Israel and the taking of more than 250 hostages. “We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that unthinkable loss,” he said. But Mamdani then turned to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, calling it a “devastating, ongoing genocide” and citing more than 74,000 deaths recorded by the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry. “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,” Mamdani said.
Democrats and Jewish groups accusing him of shifting attention from the victims of the attack to Israel’s war in Gaza, while some on the pro-Palestinian left say he did not go far enough.
The statement drew fierce criticism from several Democratic lawmakers, who said Mamdani had made the anniversary about Israel rather than Hamas and the people killed and abducted on October 7.
He added that three years later, “occupation and apartheid continue”, while accusing the US federal government of complicity through arms shipments.
Sanders said Israel had the right to defend itself and target Hamas after the October 7 attack, but accused Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of waging “a genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza”. At the same time, senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who is a close adviser to Mamdani, defended the mayor’s basic framing of the conflict.