Democrat congressman's Israel trip takes dramatic turn as officials dispute viral claims

A sitting United States congressman reported an unexpected altercation during his visit to Israel last week. While supporters call for accountability, others have insisted that the altercation was nothing more than a big misunderstanding.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) made a post on Saturday detailing an alleged detention by Israeli settlers and Israel Defense Forces.

'It's too much, too insulting and humiliating to America. This is how revolutions start.'

The video and photo in Rep. Khanna's initial post show multiple vehicles in the road with a few men standing outside one of the trucks. The vehicles appear to be blocking the road from the perspective of a camera in a vehicle facing the scene.

Two of the men are apparently holding firearms. One of them appears to be wearing full military garb.

"Israeli settlers, brandishing American made M4s, detained me & other Americans on my trip to Palestine. When the IDF arrived, they sided with the settlers & continued our detention," Khanna said in the caption of the post.

"They made a huge mistake. You will be hearing more soon," he added, linking a New York Times article at the end of the post.

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Alex Wong/Getty Images

The initial post has since garnered 10 million views on X.

The New York Times added some context behind Khanna's three-day trip. On Wednesday, the Democratic congressman was visiting the abandoned Palestinian Bedouin village of Khirbet Zanuta in the southern West Bank.

According to the report, "a car of men holding guns pulled up and blocked the narrow road out of the village." The men allegedly began harassing and taunting Khanna and his team. Eventually, members of the Israeli military showed up, yet instead of dispersing the settlers, they began blocking the road as well.

While Khanna was eventually allowed to continue his journey, he reflected on the fear that this incident inspired in him: “I felt powerless in that situation, which is not an easy thing, as I have a lot of privilege in life. Imagine how people feel every day, Palestinians under the occupation, if they could make an American congressperson feel powerless for 90 minutes.”

The Israeli military confirmed that troops were sent to the scene after receiving a report of settlers blocking vehicles near the Palestinian village, according to a statement by the Israeli military to Reuters.

"Upon their arrival, the troops dispersed the Israeli civilians and allowed the vehicles to continue on their way," the military told Reuters.

On Monday morning, the congressman reposted bodycam footage capturing what Khanna described as an "unprecedented, illegal detention of Americans by a foreign country."

The video, posted by Nadav Wieman, executive director of Breaking the Silence, shows the point of view of a man walking up to several men in one car and speaking with them briefly before returning to a van. However, the man does not refer to Khanna by name, nor does Khanna appear at any point in the video.

Of the video, Wieman wrote: "The IDF is lying about the detention of Rep. Khanna. I was on the ground with him that day, and my body camera captured us being detained by both settlers and Israeli soldiers. The IDF did not disperse the violent settlers, as they claim. They explicitly sided with them."

However, others, including Ambassadors Mike Huckabee and Michael Leiter, have insisted that there is "more to this story," as Huckabee put it.

In a "Face the Nation" interview, Leiter, Israeli ambassador to the United States, explained that the congressman did not follow the proper protocol, leading to confusion: “There was not an alert. There was a question about visas, that's all.”

“When we requested he coordinate the trip with us, he rejected that by basically staying silent. So, that's unfortunate. This whole incident is unfortunate," he added.

Huckabee, U.S. ambassador to Israel, has acknowledged the incident in two separate posts, though both posts merely highlighted others' reporting on the incident, a fact which one of Huckabee's high-profile opponents attacked.

Additionally, Huckabee's two posts acknowledging the incident came several hours after Tucker Carlson's attack on his response:

An Amercian [sic] member of congress is threatened by foreign terrorists carrying American rifles, backed by a foreign military paid for by American taxpayers, and the US ambassador to that country says not a word in defense of his own countryman, and instead uses his social media accounts to promote his own vapid cable news appearances, which amount to propaganda for that same foreign country. It’s too much, too insulting and humiliating to America. This is how revolutions start. For the sake our nation, Mike Huckabee should be removed from his post immediately.

Blaze News contacted the Jerusalem Embassy's press office in an attempt to receive a comment from Huckabee but did not immediately receive a response.

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