California Democrat Ro Khanna accused the Israeli military of lying about his treatment during a detention in the occupied West Bank, saying armed settlers and soldiers held him and his delegation for roughly 20 minutes while brandishing rifles and blocking their convoy.
The incident occurred Wednesday in the South Hebron hills near Zanuta, where international observers say Israel has orchestrated what amounts to forced displacement of Palestinian residents. Khanna posted video evidence on social media showing settlers confronting his vehicle.
On NBC's Meet the Press Sunday, Khanna rejected the Israeli Defense Forces' claim that soldiers quickly dispersed the civilians and cleared the road. "The IDF is lying," he said flatly. "What happened was unprecedented. They had violent settlers detain American citizens, including an American government official. You had these settlers brandishing M4 rifles, kicking the tires of our van, laughing at us, mocking at us, videotaping us."
Khanna described the soldiers' response as complicit. When four IDF personnel arrived, he said, they told his translator they sided with the settlers and further detained the congressional group by blocking them in.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, appearing on the same program before Khanna, had dismissed the armed settlers as a handful of "juvenile delinquents" unrepresentative of the law-abiding settler community. Khanna responded by demanding investigations into both the settlers involved and the four IDF officers present.
He specifically named Yinon Levi, an Israeli settler connected to violence in the region. Levi was recorded on video roughly a year earlier apparently firing a fatal shot that killed Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen. Israeli authorities have not prosecuted Levi for that killing, despite video evidence including footage shot by Hathaleen himself as he was hit.
"The prime minister needs to open an investigation on these violent settlers who are connected to Yinon Levi, who has destroyed Zanuta's village and is a known person who has killed Palestinians," Khanna said. "He needs to have an investigation on these four IDF officers. Security cameras can see that they were involved in the detention of American citizens. How dare they mistreat people with an American passport that way?"
Israeli officials pushed back aggressively. The government told the New York Post that Khanna had rejected efforts to coordinate his visit, including a proposed meeting with Israeli hostages from Gaza. "Congressman Khanna didn't come to understand the situation, he came looking for a headline," they said.
Israel's US-born ambassador Michael Leiter escalated the counterattack during an appearance on CBS News Face the Nation. He accused Khanna of using the West Bank visit as a political stunt to distract from his earlier support of Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, who faces sexual assault allegations. Leiter also suggested the timing was designed to boost a potential Khanna presidential run in 2028.
"To have this incident on Wednesday and wait to release it on Saturday, maybe this had more something to do with his support of Graham Platner beforehand and the difficulties he had with that, and trying to shift the focus to something else," Leiter said. Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan audibly laughed at that theory.
Khanna had actually requested that news of his detention be withheld until after he left Israeli-controlled territory. When Brennan pointed this out, Leiter simply restated his criticism, accusing the congressman of making the visit to appeal to Democratic voters.
The congressman's account was corroborated by Nadav Weiman, director of Breaking the Silence, the Israeli human rights group that organized the trip. Weiman said soldiers appeared to defer to settler decisions rather than the reverse.
"Armed settlers were the first to arrive, and then, as has become the norm, Israeli soldiers joined them," Weiman wrote on social media. "Together they detained the delegation for over an hour. The IDF is lying and not for the first time. I went to speak with the soldiers to ask them to use their authority to remove the settlers who had threatened us and blocked the road. Instead, I saw how the settlers were giving the orders not the other way around."
The detention was documented by Cameron Kasky, Khanna's digital strategist and a survivor of the Parkland school shooting. Kasky has long connected his advocacy on gun violence to broader concerns about the use of American weapons in conflict zones.
Author James Rodriguez: "Khanna's direct challenge to Netanyahu and the IDF, backed by video evidence, exposes how settler violence operates with apparent military protection, regardless of who occupies the White House or Congress."
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