Maybe if this American Senator were in America fighting for America First issues, he wouldn’t have been detained in the first place.
U.S. Senator Ro Khanna announced in a post on X that he was detained by Israeli Forces while visiting the West Bank, which has long been disputed by Israel and Palestine.
Khanna, in his post, shared that a group of Israeli settlers approached him with guns while he was visiting a Palestinian village in the West Bank.
As the escalation grew, IDF soldiers arrived on the scene and reportedly prevented Khanna from going any further into the West Bank.
Fox News had the full scoop of the incident:
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., claims to have been detained by Israeli settlers armed with U.S.-made firearms while visiting the West Bank.
Khanna and his team were surrounded by a group of West Bank settlers near the Palestinian village of Khirbet Zanuta on Wednesday, his office told The New York Times. The settlers were armed with American-made M4 machine guns, Khanna’s office said.
When soldiers from the Israeli Defense Forces arrived, Khanna claimed they sided with the settlers. The situation only defused after Israeli police officers arrived and dispersed the settlers and their vehicles blocking the U.S. congressional group’s path, according to the Democrat’s office.
“If they will do this to an American congressman, imagine what is happening to Palestinian families who are just trying to live,” Rep Khanna told Fox News Digital in a statement.
“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,” Rep. Khanna said.
Reached by Fox News Digital, a representative for Khanna’s team said she could confirm the details reported by the Times. Khanna also spoke to Reuters about what allegedly transpired.
“I’m certainly probably the first American politician who’s been detained by the IDF and Israeli settlers,” Khanna said in a Reuters video.
“We were at a village that Israeli settlers had destroyed,” Khanna said. “And these hoodlums come in with machine guns, an 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 has since released the following video:
Israeli settlers, brandishing American made M4s, detained me & other Americans on my trip to Palestine.
When the IDF arrived, they sided with the settlers & continued our detention.
They made a huge mistake.
You will be hearing more soon. https://t.co/rZw8bRAn64 pic.twitter.com/4z50Ye4I7K
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) July 11, 2026
The New York Times provided a statement from the IDF:
In a statement on Saturday, a spokesperson for the Israeli military said that it had received a report of Israeli civilians unlawfully blocking the vehicles of foreign nationals and members of the news media near the village on Wednesday.
Troops were dispatched and reopened the road, the spokesperson said.
The military disputed that its soldiers had participated in blocking the exit and said that the identity of the armed civilian was being reviewed.
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