Ro Khanna says settlers and IDF detained him in West Bank visit

Ro Khanna said Israeli settlers and members of the Israel Defense Forces detained him for more than an hour during a July 8, 2026 visit to the West Bank, after his vehicle reached Khirbet Zanuta, a small Palestinian hamlet in the southern West Bank near Hebron. Khanna said the scene unfolded while he was touring an area where Palestinian residents had already been forcibly displaced after violent settler raids that followed the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.

Khanna said settlers surrounded his group’s van while carrying U.S.-made M4 rifles and blocked the road. He said IDF members later spoke with the settlers and moved a car to block the road, turning the encounter into a standoff that kept his group in place for more than an hour. Cameron Kasky, who was with the delegation, said the group contacted the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem for help.

The Israeli military said troops and police responded after receiving a report that settlers were blocking vehicles near Khirbet Zanuta. It said the civilians were dispersed and the vehicles were allowed to continue on their way.

Khirbet Zanuta sits near Hebron, in a region marked by pressure from nearby settlement outposts and recurring attacks. Khanna said the experience made him more resolved to consider a 2028 presidential run.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded more than 260 settler attacks in October 2025, the highest monthly total it had recorded since it began tracking such incidents in 2006. In a July 2026 update, OCHA said more than 3,200 Palestinians had been displaced across the West Bank this year by settler attacks and permit-related demolitions, averaging 17 people a day. A March 2026 report from the United Nations Human Rights Office said settlement expansion and related violence forced more than 36,000 Palestinians from their homes over the previous 12 months.