U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna said Saturday that armed Israeli settlers briefly detained him and other Americans during a visit to the occupied West Bank, accusing the Israeli military of complicity.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) denied Khanna's claim that they were involved in blocking his path Wednesday, in a statement to AFP.
"Israeli settlers, brandishing American-made M4s, detained me & other Americans on my trip to Palestine," Khanna said in a post on X.
When the Israeli military arrived at the scene, he added, "they sided with the settlers & continued our detention. They made a huge mistake."
Footage and accounts provided to The New York Times by Khanna and his team show a group of armed men blocking the road outside a small village in the southern West Bank and swearing at them in Hebrew and Arabic.
