In brief
- Ro Khanna was touring a part of the southern West Bank where residents face frequent Israeli settler attacks.
- In a separate incident, four Israeli settlers were arrested after attacking a group of international journalists.
A prominent Democratic US politician from California, Ro Khanna, said overnight he was detained by armed Israeli settlers along with other Americans during a visit to the Israeli-occupied West Bank — and accused the military of being complicit.
"Israeli settlers, brandishing American made M4s, detained me & other Americans on my trip to Palestine," Khanna said in a post on X.
When the Israeli military arrived at the scene, he added, "they sided with the settlers & continued our detention. They made a huge mistake."
Footage and accounts provided to The New York Times by Khanna and his team shows a group of armed men blocking the road outside a small village in the southern West Bank and swearing at them in Hebrew and Arabic.
Khanna said that when IDF arrived he was dispirited to see them interact in a friendly manner with the settlers and block the exit for the congressman's party.
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"Imagine how people feel every day, Palestinians under the occupation, if they could make an American congressperson feel powerless for 90 minutes," Khanna told the Times.
After calls to the US embassy and Israeli police, the congressman — who represents a district in Silicon Valley — said he was allowed to pass.
Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. Geneva Convention states that an occupying force can't move its civilians to the territory it occupies.
The Israeli military said in a statement sent to Agence France-Presse that it had received a report "regarding Israeli civilians who were unlawfully blocking the vehicles of foreign nationals and members of the media in the area of Khirbet Zanuta".
"Upon receiving the report, IDF troops were dispatched to the scene, quickly dispersed the Israeli civilians, and reopened the blocked road. The IDF soldiers operating in the area did not take part in blocking the road."
Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, the United Nations has reported a sharp increase in Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, while several Israeli ministers have continued to call for the annexation of all or part of the territory.
Israel’s government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under heavy criticism from many countries around the world and rights groups for accelerating settlement expansion, which they say is aimed at preventing the establishment of a future Palestinian state.
Israeli settlers attack CNN crew in West Bank
In a separate incident after Khanna's detention, Israeli settlers damaged a vehicle carrying foreign journalists in the occupied West Bank, which US broadcaster CNN described as an attack on its crew by the settlers.
Israeli police said they arrested four settlers on Saturday (local time) after the attack.
According to CNN, its team was reporting near the village of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, when the incident took place.
"As the CNN team and other journalists tried to leave, a group of four settlers blocked the road with their car and tried to keep the vehicles from moving forward," the network said in a report on its website.
"The four settlers were wielding wooden and metal rods and stones. One settler brandished a knife and tried to puncture the tyres of CNN's vehicle."
CNN said the group later climbed onto another vehicle carrying journalists that was travelling behind its team and smashed its windshield.
In a statement, Israeli police said they received a report that suspects had blocked a vehicle carrying several foreign journalists near Sinjil.
"IDF (military) forces from the Samaria Brigade were dispatched to the scene, secured the journalists' passage, and detained four suspects believed to have been involved in the incident," the statement said.
Police later "arrested the suspects, collected witness statements from the journalists, and located and seized the suspects' vehicle".
During a search of the vehicle, officers recovered clubs and a knife, the force added.
United States divided over Israel support
Khanna is the second Democrat considering a White House bid to visit the region this week. In Tel Aviv on Wednesday, Rahm Emanuel, who was chief of staff to former President Barack Obama, said Israeli policies toward Palestinians were eroding US support for Israel.
The former Chicago mayor gave a blistering speech in which he said Israel has become a “territorial pariah".
Israel's conduct toward Palestinians has emerged as a flashpoint in Democratic politics ahead of November's US midterm elections, contributing to primary defeats for some incumbent politicians as public sentiment shifts over Israel's right-wing government.
Israel's favorability rating among Democrats fell from 59 per cent in 2018 to 22 per cent in May, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.
While Israel has long enjoyed strong bipartisan US support, an increasing number of Democrats in Congress are now pressing to cut off military aid, which amounts to $3.8 billion per year and includes funding for light weaponry like M4 rifles and missile interceptors that Israel used in the Iran war.
Khanna said he believed his party's establishment was "clueless about how much of a moral test Palestine, Gaza and Israel have become".
He said he chose to do a visit exclusively to the West Bank, with programming led by Palestinians, to give him an unfiltered view of territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
"If you're unwilling to speak up for Palestinian human rights, if you're unwilling to speak up against the genocide in Gaza, the apartheid in the West Bank, then you are morally compromised."
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