US Democrat Ro Khanna says he was detained by armed Israeli settlers
US Representative Ro Khanna has said he was briefly detained by armed Israeli settlers during a fact-finding visit to the West Bank. The Israel Defense Forces stated that troops dispersed the civilians and allowed the vehicles to continue.
US Democrat Ro Khanna, a congressman considering a presidential run in 2028, claimed he was detained by armed Israeli settlers while visiting the ruins of Khirbet Zanuta in the occupied West Bank. Khanna was on a fact-finding mission to assess the impact of the Israeli occupation on the area.
According to Khanna, the settlers – whom he called “hoodlums” – arrived with machine guns, blocked the road, and detained the group. “We were at a village that Israeli settlers had destroyed, they had destroyed the school, they had destroyed that village, and we were just looking at it,” he said. “And these hoodlums come in with machine guns – M4, an American-made machine gun – and they detain us. They block off the road. And then they call the IDF and the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans.”
The IDF issued a statement saying that upon arrival, troops dispersed the Israeli civilians and allowed the vehicles to continue on their way. An aide who was with Khanna said that during the detention, they appealed to the US Embassy in Jerusalem for help, and the group was released after a group of police officers intervened.
Since the 1967 Middle East war, Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – land Palestinians want, along with Gaza, for a hoped-for future state. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them. The settlements are considered illegal under international law.
