{"id":757194,"date":"2026-07-11T19:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T19:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/757194\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T19:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T19:02:12","slug":"us-lawmaker-slams-israeli-army-after-settlers-detain-him-on-palestine-trip-israel-palestine-conflict-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/757194\/","title":{"rendered":"US lawmaker slams Israeli army after settlers detain him on Palestine trip | Israel-Palestine conflict News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democrat Ro Khanna accuses soldiers of supporting the settlers, warning that Israeli forces made a \u2018huge mistake\u2019.<\/p>\n

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Published On 11 Jul 202611 Jul 2026<\/p>\n

A Democratic lawmaker from the United States says he and his tour group were detained by rifle-wielding Israeli settlers during a trip to Palestine.<\/p>\n

In a post<\/a> on X on Saturday, Ro Khanna accused the Israeli army of supporting the settlers.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the [Israeli army] arrived, they sided with the settlers and continued our detention,\u201d Khanna wrote, saying he will release more details about the ordeal soon.<\/p>\n

The incident has drawn renewed attention to settler violence<\/a> in the occupied West Bank, which has surged since Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza nearly three years ago.<\/p>\n

Rights groups say settlers have been emboldened by the Israeli government, while Amnesty International has accused Israel of carrying out a state-backed campaign of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Last month, several Western countries sanctioned<\/a> networks linked to settler violence.<\/p>\n

Khanna, who is considering running for US president in 2028, warned that the Israelis had made a \u201chuge mistake\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, he told the Reuters news agency that \u201choodlums \u2026 with machine guns\u201d had detained his group a day earlier. \u201cThey block off the road. And then they call the [Israeli military] and the [Israeli military] is on their side,\u201d Khanna said.<\/p>\n

He added that the settlers were armed with US-made assault rifles.<\/p>\n

In an interview with DRM News, Khanna said his experience in the occupied West Bank and Israel was the \u201cfirst time\u201d he had \u201creally been acutely aware of being brown\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw the arrogance in the eyes of those settlers. Twenty-one and 22-year-olds with guns, laughing that they had detained us. The arrogance of those young [Israeli army] soldiers that my tax dollars are funding. Having no respect for the fact that they were detaining Americans,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Cameron Kasky, an aide to Khanna who was in the group, said they were held for more than an hour and made appeals to the US embassy in Jerusalem for help.<\/p>\n

He said they were eventually released after officers, who appeared to be police, intervened.<\/p>\n

The Israeli military said troops and police officers intervened after receiving a report of settlers blocking vehicles near Khirbet Zanuta, a small Palestinian hamlet whose residents were forcibly displaced by violent settler raids at the start of Israel\u2019s 2023 genocidal Gaza war.<\/p>\n

Israel, which has long enjoyed bipartisan support in the US, has come under increased scrutiny in recent months, with both Republicans and Democrats calling for an end to US military aid.<\/p>\n

Congress is currently reviewing new military spending legislation that, if passed, would deepen the US\u2019s defence ties with Israel. Republican Thomas Massie and Khanna have been pushing for lawmakers to end military aid to Israel.<\/p>\n

Last week, Khanna said the House Rules Committee had cancelled a vote on a bill proposed by Massie, which he co-sponsored, calling for an end to US funding for Israel\u2019s military.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democrat Ro Khanna accuses soldiers of supporting the settlers, warning that Israeli forces made a \u2018huge mistake\u2019. Published…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3075,803,2563,129,4379,3,3329,2485,22508,21,19,22,20,25,1209,24],"class_list":["post-757194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-human-rights","tag-israel","tag-israel-palestine-conflict","tag-middle-east","tag-military","tag-news","tag-occupied-west-bank","tag-palestine","tag-race-issues","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-canada","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}