US congressman Ro Khanna detained by Israeli settlers in the West Bank
US Democratic Representative Ro Khanna said he and a group he was travelling with were detained for more than an hour by armed Israeli settlers on July 9 near Khirbet Zanuta, a Palestinian hamlet in the occupied West Bank. According to Khanna, settlers carrying rifles blocked the road and held the group until Israeli forces arrived.
Khanna said that when soldiers reached the scene they sided with the settlers rather than intervening, and that police eventually facilitated the group’s release. He described the settlers as “hoodlums” with guns and criticised the soldiers’ conduct. The Israeli military said troops and police responded after receiving reports of settlers blocking vehicles and framed their actions as routine law enforcement.
The episode is notable less for the hour-long detention than for who it happened to: a sitting member of Congress, on a US aid oversight trip, held by settlers reportedly armed with US-made weapons while soldiers stood by. That combination feeds directly into the argument some Democrats are making for conditioning military aid to Israel, and gives that camp a firsthand account rather than a secondhand report of settler violence, which has risen sharply in the West Bank since 2023.