New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has condemned the October 7 attack by Hamas while describing Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza as an “ongoing genocide”.
“This day is profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers,” Mamdani said in a statement, marking three years since the October 7 attack.
He said Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 people during the attack.
“We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbours who still carry that unthinkable loss,” Mamdani said.
However, he said the suffering had continued since the October 7 attack, accusing the Israeli government of conducting what he called a “devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza”.
Mamdani said more than 74,000 Palestinians, including over 21,000 children, had been killed in Gaza. He also claimed that more than 1,400 Palestinians had been killed since what he described as a “so-called ceasefire”.
The mayor cited Israeli attacks on ambulances outside hospitals, drone strikes targeting residential buildings and journalists, and restrictions on food-aid shipments entering Gaza as examples of the continuing humanitarian crisis.
“Many New Yorkers are reckoning with this unbearable grief, and we mourn alongside them,” Mamdani said, arguing that US taxpayer money was being used to support what he described as war crimes.
He also criticised the US government, accusing it of complicity in the conflict through continued arms shipments to Israel.
Three years after the October 7 attack, Mamdani called for an end to what he described as occupation, apartheid and impunity for alleged war crimes.
“To honour the dead, we must fight for a world in which every person can live with freedom, safety, and dignity,” he said.
