Rep. Ro Khanna said armed Israeli settlers detained him and his staff for 90 minutes during a fact-finding tour of the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, prompting the California Democrat to appeal to the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem for help before Israeli police intervened to end the standoff.
The 49-year-old, who has said he is weighing a 2028 presidential bid, told Reuters that settlers wielding U.S.-manufactured M4 rifles surrounded his van near the Palestinian hamlet of Khirbet Zanuta. Israel Defense Forces troops who arrived on the scene "sided with the settlers and continued our detention," Khanna wrote on X.
What Khanna described
Khanna was inspecting the ruins of Khirbet Zanuta, whose residents were displaced by settler raids after the October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, when the van was blocked. "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 told Reuters. Cameron Kasky, an aide traveling with him, said the group was held for more than an hour before appeals to the embassy prompted a group of officers to intervene.
The military's account
The IDF told NBC News that "Israeli civilians" were "unlawfully blocking the vehicles of foreign nationals and members of the media" and that soldiers "did not take part in blocking the road." Israeli police told NBC News the confrontation occurred inside a "closed military zone" and said body-camera footage confirmed the tour's leader had previously violated the restriction. Officers warned him any further violations "would result in immediate arrest."
Political stakes
Khanna cast the encounter as evidence for shifting Democratic foreign policy, telling Reuters he is "strongly considering" a White House run and "more resolved" after the trip. Israel's favorability among Democrats fell to 22 percent in May from 59 percent in 2018, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling cited by NBC News. Khanna has partnered with Republican Rep. Thomas Massie on legislation to end the $3.8 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Israel.
Netanyahu response
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a recent CNN interview cited by the Washington Examiner, attributed settler violence to about 150 "juvenile delinquents" and said the attacks caused "a lot of damage" but did not reflect Israeli government policy or the broader settler movement. Netanyahu did not address Khanna's detention directly.
In a written statement, Khanna said he expects Israel "will prosecute the violent settlers and IDF soldiers who detained American citizens."