Trump says Netanyahu won’t be arrested in US as Mamdani weighs legal options

2 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Jul 21, 2026 12:38 AM IST

US President Donald Trump has announced that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested while visiting the United States. This comes as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani had said that he was still considering arresting the Israeli prime minister when he visits America.

Without referring to Mayor Mamdani, Trump, in a post on Truth Social, wrote, “Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.” The US President credited Netanyahu for helping America in the war against Iran.

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The New York City mayor, in an interview telecast on Saturday, had said that the city’s legal department ⁠is actively considering ⁠what the law allows it to do.

“I believe that Prime ⁠Minister ‌Netanyahu belongs in The Hague. He’s a war criminal who has ‌been charged by the International Criminal Court,” Mamdani told a New York Times video podcast.

Trump, while praising Netanyahu, said, “He is fighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which recently killed 52,000 innocent protestors, and has spent the last 47 years killing American Soldiers, and others.”

Traditionally, Netanyahu travels to New York every year in September for the session at the United Nations General Assembly, where world leaders gather annually.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant against Netanyahu for allegedly committing war crimes during the war with the Hamas militant group in Gaza. However, the Israeli government has denied the war crimes allegations and rejected the court’s jurisdiction.

Calling the ICC a “Kangaroo court” and the arrest warrant against Netanyahu “bogus”, Israel said, “Mamdani appears interested in diverting public attention from his follies and attacking the leader of the Jewish ‌state and the only democracy in the Middle East,” Reuters reported.

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Notably, the ICC was established in 2002, but the United States and Israel are not members of the court.

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