Mamdani meets Palestinian families on Oct. 7 anniversary

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani met Palestinian families at a Palestinian restaurant in Manhattan after attending a Union Square memorial on the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani met Palestinian families in the city on the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks. On Wednesday evening, Mamdani sat down with Palestinian New Yorkers at Hinds Hall by Ayat, a Palestinian restaurant in Manhattan.

The meeting came after Mamdani attended a memorial in Union Square that evening for those killed in the Oct. 7 attack. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators who gathered in the square protested against him with chants of "traitor," while Mamdani waited silently through the speeches.

Mamdani with Palestinian New Yorkers at a Palestinian restaurant in Manhattan

"US taxes fund war crimes"

Union Square in New York (archive)

In a written statement released the same day, Mamdani said more than 74,000 Palestinians, including more than 21,000 children, had been killed in Gaza, described Israel’s operation in Gaza as genocide and argued that U.S. taxes were funding war crimes.

Mamdani, New York’s first Muslim mayor, took office in January 2026.