US Congressman Ro Khanna has said his group was detained by armed and illegal Israeli settlers during a visit to the occupied West Bank. On Saturday he described the incident as a brutal picture of the daily reality Palestinians face under occupation.
In an interview with Reuters in the Palestinian village of Turmus Ayya, the California Democrat said the incident happened when his delegation went to visit a Palestinian village called Khirbet Zanuta in the southern part of the occupied West Bank, whose residents had already been forcibly displaced in the face of continuous settler attacks.
Khanna said that as they were looking at the destroyed village and the ruins of a wrecked school there, armed Israelis surrounded their car.
Khanna told Reuters: “They destroyed the school, they finished off the whole village. These thugs came with American-made M-4 machine guns and detained us. They blocked the road. Then they informed the Israeli army, and the IDF came and took the side not of the Americans but of the attacking settlers.”
Khanna’s aide Cameron Kasky, who was with him, said they had been held for more than an hour before Israeli police intervened. During the situation, members of the delegation also contacted the US embassy in Jerusalem for help.
The Israeli army acknowledged that forces had been sent after receiving reports that settlers had blocked a car near Khirbet Zanuta. According to Reuters, the army said in a statement that soldiers and police had gone to the scene, removed the settlers and allowed the US delegation to proceed to its destination. Israeli police and the US embassy in Jerusalem declined to comment immediately.
The village of Khirbet Zanuta has become a symbol of the extreme Israeli violence now seen in the occupied West Bank. Facing repeated attacks, Palestinian residents have been forced to leave the area, and various human rights organizations have documented an alarming rise in Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the region.
Khanna’s visit came at a time when debate is intensifying within the Democratic Party over what US policy toward Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories should be.
Asked whether he would seek the Democratic Party’s nomination in the 2028 US presidential election, Khanna said he was considering it seriously and that the visit had strengthened his thinking.
According to the congressman, many Democratic Party leaders fail to grasp how deep the political and moral importance of the Palestine issue is for US voters. “If you can’t speak up for the human rights of Palestinians, can’t stand against the genocide in Gaza or the apartheid in the West Bank, then your moral standing is in question,” Khanna said.
Khanna also said he had decided to make the trip solely through Palestinian arrangements, without any official Israeli program, so that he could see the real situation on the ground for himself.
Just a few days before his remarks, the former White House chief of staff in the Obama administration and possible Democratic presidential candidate Rahm Emanuel had also criticized Israel’s policy toward Palestinians during a visit to Tel Aviv, warning that such actions were steadily eroding America’s long-standing support for Israel.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report