US Congressman Ro Khanna and his delegation were detained for approximately 90 minutes on July 9, 2026, when armed Israeli settlers blocked their vehicle near the Palestinian village of Khirbet Zanuta in the southern West Bank [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]. The settlers, carrying US-made M4 rifles, surrounded the van and prevented it from passing until Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) troops and police arrived to disperse the settlers [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9]. Khanna’s aide Cameron Kasky said they appealed to the US Embassy in Jerusalem before police intervened [2, 4, 5, 7].
Khanna criticized the IDF for siding with the settlers, calling the military’s official account "a lie" and accusing soldiers of complicity in the detention [1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 9]. 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" [2]. He described feeling "powerless" and "frightened" during the incident and urged investigations into the settlers and soldiers involved [3, 6, 8, 9].
The Israeli military confirmed dispatching forces to disperse Israelis blocking the road but denied any soldiers participated in detaining Khanna’s group [1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9]. Israeli officials refused to apologize or hold settlers accountable, instead criticizing Khanna for failing to coordinate the trip with the Israeli government. Israel’s ambassador to the US, Michael Leiter, suggested Khanna’s choice to coordinate with Palestinian activists instead contributed to the incident [10, 11].
Khanna was on a fact-finding visit to Palestinian villages damaged or destroyed by settlers following the 2023 Hamas attacks. He said, "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" [1]. The West Bank and East Jerusalem have roughly 700,000 Israeli settlers living in about 160 settlements alongside 3.3 million Palestinians [1].
Khanna, a Democrat from California considering a 2028 presidential run, called for an Israeli inquiry and prosecution of settlers linked to violence against Palestinians, demanding accountability for the mistreatment of American citizens like himself [1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9]. The incident highlighted ongoing tensions over settlements in the occupied territories.
Khanna publicly detailed the incident in media interviews on July 11, 2026, maintaining his claims against Israeli authorities who disputed his version [2, 3, 10, 5, 11, 9]. The political dispute continued in the days following the detention as Khanna called for investigations and Israel criticized his trip coordination approach [10, 11, 9].
