In a dramatic incident that underscores the deepening tensions in the occupied West Bank, US Democratic Representative Ro Khanna said he and his group were surrounded and detained by Israeli settlers wielding American-made M4 rifles during a visit to the southern West Bank this week.
“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 told Reuters from a Palestinian village on Thursday. “And these hoodlums come in with machine guns.”
Khanna, a progressive California lawmaker, framed the trip as an unfiltered look at the human toll of Israeli occupation. The visit carries added political weight as Khanna is reportedly weighing a run for the US presidency in 2028. The incident is likely to fuel the already fierce debate within the Democratic Party over US policy toward Israel and the Palestinian territories.
