TURMUS AYYA, West Bank — Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said he was detained by Israeli settlers armed with U.S.-made rifles during a West Bank visit this week that he cast as an unfiltered look at the human toll of Israeli occupation as he weighs a 2028 presidential run.
Speaking with Reuters on Thursday in a Palestinian village, Khanna said his group’s van was surrounded by settlers wielding M4 rifles a day earlier while touring a part of the southern West Bank where residents face frequent settler attacks.
“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,” Khanna said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
An aide to Khanna who was in the group, Cameron Kasky, said they were held for more than an hour and made appeals to the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem for help. A group of officers who appeared to be police eventually intervened, leading to their release, Kasky said.
The Israeli military said troops and police officers intervened after receiving a report of settlers blocking vehicles near Khirbet Zanuta, a small Palestinian hamlet whose residents were forcibly displaced by violent settler raids following the 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.
“Earlier this week (Wednesday), a report was received regarding Israeli civilians who were unlawfully blocking the vehicles of foreign nationals and members of the media in the area of Khirbet Zanuta, within the Judea Regional Brigade,” a spokesperson for the IDF told NBC News. “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.”
Israel Police told NBC News that it responded to a report that a group was blocking a route inside a “closed military zone” that’s technically controlled by the Israel Defense Forces.
Police said by the time officers arrived, IDF soldiers had halted the tour group’s progress in the restricted zone.
Police said officers witnessed no violence during the confrontation, but said the tour group’s leader was warned he could be arrested. Tour participants were told civilians are not allowed there and then released, police said.
“A review of body-worn camera footage confirms that the group leader was explicitly warned by officers, as this was not his first time violating the Closed Military Zone order,” police said. “He was issued a final warning that any future violations would result in immediate arrest.”
The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a later statement, Khanna said, “If they will do this to an American congressman, imagine what is happening to Palestinian families who are just trying to live. I am grateful to David Brownstein of the American embassy for helping rescue us. I expect Israel will prosecute the violent settlers and IDF soldiers who detained American citizens.”
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 support for the U.S.-Israeli alliance.
Asked if he was running for president, Khanna said: “I’m strongly considering it, and I’m more resolved to consider it after this trip.”
Israel’s conduct toward Palestinians has emerged as a flashpoint in Democratic politics ahead of November’s U.S. midterm elections, contributing to primary defeats for some incumbent lawmakers targeted by left-wing challengers who accused them of supporting Israel’s right-wing government.
Israel’s favorability rating among Democrats fell from 59% in 2018 to 22% in May, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.
While Israel has long enjoyed strong bipartisan U.S. 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.
Overlooking a valley dotted with settler outposts on the outskirts of Turmus Ayya, a village home to thousands of Palestinian American dual nationals, 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,” Khanna said.
Israel rejects allegations it carried out a genocide in Gaza or that it institutes an apartheid regime in the West Bank, which has a population of about 3 million Palestinians and around 500,000 Jewish settlers.
Most countries and the United Nations regard Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal under international law, citing the Fourth Geneva Convention’s prohibition on transferring a civilian population into occupied territory.
Israel rejects that position, saying the West Bank is disputed territory where there has been a Jewish presence for thousands of years. Palestinians view the West Bank, together with Gaza and East Jerusalem, as part of a Palestinian state.
Support remains strong among Republicans, though some elements of Trump’s coalition have also called for cutting off aid.
