A veteran staffer of the New York City Health Department said he wished all Israelis were wiped off the Earth in a vile X post recently dug up.
“1 Israeli left in this world would be one too many!” Achmat Akkad, a community coordinator with the city’s Health Department since 2017, wrote on the social media platform about one year ago, according to the Jewish watchdog group Canary Mission.
In a November 10, 2021 deleted post, Akkad, 40, also said, “Jews that don’t support apartheid are safe. Zionists aren’t!”, according to screenshots taken by the group.
The alarming revelation comes after Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Department of Health faced a firestorm of criticism when staffers allegedly used taxpayers’ resources to launch a “global oppression” working group meeting that accused Israel of genocide.
There’ve been calls for city and even federal investigations of the Health Department over the controversy.
Akkad — who predates Mamdani — made other inflammatory statements about Israel in his archived and newly deleted X statements that were captured in screenshots and reshared by those calling out his hate.
“Israel exists by sacrificing the blood of Black and brown people as an offering to white supremacy,” he said in one of the posts under his handle @AchmatX.
In another post from a year ago, he said Zionists “are behind the attacks, far right parties being elected across the world, attacks on free speech, the wars in MENE, the dehumanization of Muslims, and increase in police power…”
The Post reached Akkad by phone, who confirmed he works for the Health Department and ran the X account in question. But he declined further comment.
He once referred to himself on social media as the “US Ambassador to Harlem.”
The health worker’s X account has since been suspended. The Post hasn’t been able to independently verify the offensive posts as a result.
The Health Department and Mamdani declined to comment.
The mayor had nothing to do with Akkad’s employment.
Akkad was first hired by the city in 2015 by the Human Resources Administration/Department of Social Services as a community associate, when Bill de Blasio was mayor.
He now makes $65,000 a year in his job at the Health Department.
“If this is who gets elevated into city government, what does that say about the leadership elevating him? New Yorkers should be outraged,” Canary Mission said.
