US Representative Ro Khanna (D – CA) reports that he was held at gunpoint for more than an hour earlier this week during his visit to the occupied West Bank when Israeli settlers confronted his entourage as he toured a destroyed Palestinian village.
“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,” Khanna said. “And these hoodlums come in with machine guns – M4, an American-made machine gun – and they detain us. They block off the road.”
The incident took place at the destroyed village of Khirbet Zanuta, a village near Hebron that was reported “ethnically cleansed” by settlers in 2023. Khanna reported that the settler group summoned the IDF and that the IDF sided with the settlers over the Americans.
Rep. Ro Khanna visits a destroyed EU-funded school in Khirbet Zanuta | Image Tweeted by Rep. Khanna’s aide
Rep. Khanna’s aide, Cameron Kasky, said the group was held for more than an hour and called the US Embassy in Jerusalem for help. Eventually, police arrived at the scene and dispersed the settlers, ending the incident.
The IDF said their troops and police officers arrived on the scene and “dispersed the Israeli civilians” but doesn’t address Khanna’s report that the initial troops that arrived sided with the settlers over the matter.
Israeli officials said Khanna had not coordinated the visit with them, so that’s why they weren’t provided with a security escort, which would be normal for an official visit to the West Bank.
