Mamdani stands by Oct. 7 statement after backlash

Josephine Stratman, New York Daily News on Oct 8, 2026

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Mayor Mamdani, after facing anger from multiple sides for his response to the anniversary of the Oct. 7 terror attacks in Israel, said Thursday he was “proud” to have attended a vigil honoring the victims.

The mayor faced criticism on Wednesday both from Jewish groups for his focus on Israel’s military campaign in Gaza on the anniversary and from pro-Palestinian protesters who accused the mayor of betraying the cause.

“I believe that there must be room to mourn every single life,” Mamdani said at a Brooklyn press conference. “There must be room to mourn the lives of the more than 1,100 Israelis that Hamas killed three years ago. There must be room to mourn the 74,000 Palestinians that the Israeli government has killed since. There must be room to reckon with the ways in which so many New Yorkers’ lives have been shattered.”

The mayor emphasized several times that he attended the same vigil last year, when he was in the final stretches of the mayoral campaign.

His statement, which was subject to much backlash on Wednesday, also echoed a similar statement he released a year prior, he said.

Several Jewish groups and public officials voiced anger over the mayor’s statement honoring the day, which focused heavily on the devastation brought by Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which he called a “genocide.”

And, in the first major public backlash from the left during his term, hard-left pro-Palestine protesters at a vigil for the victims of the Oct. 7 attacks accused him of being a traitor to the anti-Zionist cause.

“As for those protesting me, I am the mayor of New York City, and this is what I signed up for,” Mamdani said on Thursday.

After the vigil, Mamdani dined at Palestinian restaurant Ayat on the Upper West Side.

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