New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani acknowledged “the horrific war crimes” of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel on its third anniversary, but he added that “the suffering did not begin nor end that day” while calling Israel’s actions in Gaza “genocide.”

“On that day, Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others. We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that unthinkable loss,” Mamdani said in the statement. “The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza, in which it has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians—including more than 21,000 children.”