Mamdani accosted by mob of pro-Palestine agitators at candlelight vigil

Zohran Mamdani's security detail rushes him to a waiting vehicles as pro-Palestine agitators berate him.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani attended a candlelight vigil Wednesday night in Manhattan to commemorate the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack against Israel, but the mayor faced a barrage of boos and insults from pro-Palestine agitators as Mamdani's security detail rushed him away from the scene. 

The chants and insults started while the vigil was still going on in Union Square Park, video showed, with the agitators accusing Mamdani of being a traitor and turning a claim Mamdani himself has made about Israel against him. “Zohran you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” they chanted at points, according to The New York Post. “You coward!” others, who were wearing keffiyehs, screamed at the mayor. "How did you let this happen?"

After the event, as Mamdani's security detail hustled him away from the scene and into a waiting vehicle, the pro-Palestine protesters, many of them waving Hamas and Hezbollah flags, hurled obscenity-laced insults at Mamdani. "Shame on you!" they shouted, calling the polarizing mayor an "opportunist piece of s**t." Police could be seen trying to hold back the agitators, who looked primed to break into violence. 

Elsewhere, agitators could be seen carrying the flag of the Qassam Brigade, a Hamas combat unit. And masked Islamics were seen on video shouting "Allahu Akbar" as they berated a man holding an American flag and Israeli flag. 

The blowback against Mamdani from Islamic extremists came at the end of a day in which Mamdani had earlier faced widespread criticism for a social media post he made that was meant to mark the day, but which critics said quickly derailed into a screed against Israel over its response to the attacks of Oct. 7. Some described the post as "tone deaf" while others accused the mayor of trying to "hijack" the meaning of the day. 

Below, watch a clip of agitators heckling Mamdani as he left the candlelight vigil on Wednesday evening.