The US congressman Ro Khanna says armed Israeli settlers detained him during a visit to the Israel-occupied West Bank recently, describing the experience as a first-hand view of the realities faced by Palestinians living under occupation.

In an interview with Reuters on Thursday from a Palestinian village, the progressive US House Democrat from California said his detention happened the previous day while his delegation visited an area of the southern West Bank that has experienced repeated attacks by Israeli settlers.

Khanna recounted how settlers carrying US-made M4 rifles surrounded the group’s van.

“We were at a village that Israeli settlers had destroyed – they had destroyed the school, they had destroyed that village, and we were just looking at it,” Khanna said.

Referring to the Israel Defense Forces, which is funded in part by US military aid, Khanna continued: “And these hoodlums … detain us. They block off the road. And then they call the IDF and the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans.”

Khanna also told Reuters, “I saw the arrogance in the eyes of those settlers, 21- and 22-year-olds with guns, laughing that they had detained us, the arrogance of those young IDF soldiers that my tax dollars are funding – having no respect for the fact that they were detaining Americans, no respect that there was an American congressperson in that bus, and laughing when our translator told them that there are Americans there and the American embassy is concerned.”

Khanna aide Cameron Kasky wrote on X that he was there when the congressman’s group was detained, saying: “The IDF showed up to back up the settlers, not the US congressman.”

Khanna added that the encounter illustrated “the arrogance of power – of a power that has had no accountability, total impunity – and it’s created a toxic culture of oppression”.

The New York Times first reported Khanna’s account on Saturday morning. He told the outlet: “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.”

Khanna said he and his group were ultimately able to continue traveling after contacting the US embassy and Israeli police.

The Israeli military said troops and police responded after receiving a report that settlers were obstructing vehicles near Khirbet Zanuta, according to Reuters.

Khirbet Zanuta is a Palestinian hamlet whose residents were forced to leave in the wake of violent settler raids after the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023.

Asked by Reuters whether he intends to run for president, Khanna replied: “I’m strongly considering it. And I’m more resolved to consider it after this trip.”

More than 700,000 Israelis reside in settlements across the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem. The United Nations considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal, and Israel has faced repeated criticism over violence and other actions by settlers in the territory.

Since Israel took control of the West Bank in 1967, restrictions imposed there have prevented the territory from developing a self-sustaining economy. Those restrictions intensified significantly after the deadly 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.

Nearly 300,000 Palestinians have lost employment in the West Bank and Israel.

A June report issued by a UN independent international commission of inquiry concluded that “Israeli authorities and security forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank”.

According to data from human rights organisation Yesh Din, no Israeli has been indicted for the killing of a Palestinian since October 2023.

Khanna has been one of the most outspoken critics in the US Congress of the war in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank, often clashing with his own party’s establishment. In May, he released a video criticizing the Democratic National Committee’s incomplete postmortem report on the defeat that the party suffered at the hands of Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

The postmortem did not mention Gaza. In his video, Khanna said: “As someone who campaigned in Michigan and Wisconsin, let me tell you – one of the reasons we lost is our blank check to Israel and [prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu while they committed genocide in Gaza.

“We must speak and confront hard truths if this party is to win” the 2028 presidential election, he added.

Reuters contributed reporting

The sight of hundreds of masked men roaming the streets of Washington, D.C., on July Fourth weekend, wearing khakis, blue shirts and uniform patches, was chilling to some of the city’s residents.

For many Americans, it was the first they heard about Patriot Front, a white nationalist organization that was born out of the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. A now-viral Reuters photo prompted reflections on the experience of a lone African American woman who was photographed in a Metro subway car, surrounded by white supremacists.

The planned demonstration of force was timed to bring a fringe group of extremists into public view as the nation marked 250 years of its independence. Indeed, the stunt succeeded in earning the group media coverage across mainstream outlets, amplifying its brand and potential to reach new recruits. On this occasion, the members refrained from engaging in violence and property damage, projecting an image of law-abiding, orderly activism.

But those who are closely familiar with Patriot Front’s history and operations warn: Don’t believe what you see.

“That is not who they are in private,” said Len Kamdang, director of the Criminal Justice Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “Although they were on their best behavior [last] weekend, this is a dangerous group that commits acts of violence all over the country.”

Patriot Front’s history of violence and property damage

Kamdang’s organization sued members of Patriot Front for vandalizing a public mural dedicated to the tennis legend and Black activist Arthur Ashe in Richmond, Va., in 2021. Ashe, who was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1985, was born in Richmond and his legacy is a continuing source of pride to members of that community.

“A couple of Patriot Front members showed up under cover of night and vandalized the mural,” Kamdang said. “They painted white stencils all over. … They literally tried to whitewash him and they put their symbols of hate all over — their stencils, their slogans. And all the while they were caught on video. And that video leaked using some of the most horrible language that you can imagine.”

In many jurisdictions, law enforcement can seek additional hate crime charges or sentencing enhancements in cases where illegal acts appear to have been motivated by racial bias. But in this case, Kamdang said, Patriot Front members faced no criminal charges and their identities were only revealed when online activists later infiltrated the group and leaked internal records.