Israeli 'settlers' attack CNN journalists and block Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna in the West Bank: Israeli police arrest four suspects

The West Bank saw two serious incidents of violence by Israeli “settlers” in less than a week: the aggressive blocking of Democratic Representative Ro Khanna last Wednesday and the attack on a CNN crew and other journalists on Saturday, which resulted in four arrests by Israeli police.

Khanna, a progressive congressman from California and a critic of Israel who is considering a presidential run in 2028, said he was detained by “settlers” armed with M4 rifles as his convoy was traveling through the village of Khirbet Zanuta in the southern West Bank. Khanna was observing a destroyed Palestinian village when an armed group surrounded his group’s van and blocked their escape route.

"And these hoodlums come in with machine guns – M4, an American-made machine gun – and they 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 said.

An advisor to Khanna who was in the group, Cameron Kasky, said they were held for over an hour and made calls to the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem asking for help. According to Khanna himself, as quoted by CNN, the Israeli soldiers who arrived at the scene did not intervene immediately, but instead spoke with the armed men before they withdrew. The IDF, for its part, maintained that its troops dispersed the armed civilians and allowed the vehicles to continue on their way, and denied that its soldiers had participated in the blockade.

Three days later, another group of Israeli “settlers” attacked a CNN crew and other journalists near the village of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, while they were covering the first anniversary of the killing of Saif Musallet, a Palestinian-American who was beaten to death by armed Israeli civilians in July of last year. Within minutes of the journalists arriving at the site where Musallet was killed, the attackers stormed the area; when the CNN team and other journalists tried to leave, four men blocked the road with their car and prevented the vehicles from moving forward. The four were carrying wooden and metal sticks, as well as stones; one of them brandished a knife and attempted to puncture the tires of the CNN vehicle.

The attackers then jumped on the vehicle traveling behind the CNN vehicle, which was carrying another group of journalists, and smashed its windshield. Another group attempted to block a different escape route before chasing the journalists toward the town of Sinjil. When Israeli police officers and soldiers arrived, the police said they arrested four suspects after locating their vehicle nearby, where they seized clubs and a knife.

"The Israel Police and the (Israel Defense Forces) view any manifestation of violence or causing damage to property very seriously, especially when it concerns media personnel performing their work,” the police said in a statement.

Khanna, meanwhile, harshly criticized the attitude of both the "settlers" and the soldiers he witnessed during his detention: "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," the congressman told CNN. Following Musallet's assassination in July 2025, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee had called it a "criminal and terrorist act" and urged authorities to investigate; but Musallet's father told CNN that no one has been arrested for that crime.

Both incidents occurred just days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged in an interview with Dana Bash of CNN on Tuesday that violence in this area of the West Bank had “blown up beyond belief.” Netanyahu described those responsible as a group of 150 “juvenile delinquents” and said that the police and the army “are taking action,” although Israeli courts “are very lenient” toward those convicted of this type of violence.

“Settlers” is the term the international press commonly uses to refer to Israeli citizens who have settled in settlements built in the West Bank since Israel occupied the territory in the 1967 war. Most countries and the UN consider these settlements illegal under international law, citing the Fourth Geneva Convention. But in Israel, on the other hand, this characterization is rejected, as they argue that the West Bank is disputed territory with a millennia-old Jewish presence, and in its official nomenclature—as well as in the terminology used by the settlement residents themselves and sectors of the Israeli government—the region is referred to as “Judea and Samaria,” and its inhabitants as “residents” of that area, not “settlers.”

Despite Netanyahu’s statements, violence by “settlers” in the West Bank has intensified in recent months, with Israeli soldiers in some cases standing by idly during the attacks. Khanna’s visit also comes amid a series of visits to the West Bank in recent days by Democratic figures with potential presidential aspirations, at a time when Israel’s treatment of Palestinians has become a point of contention within the Democratic Party ahead of the November congressional elections. In fact, Democratic voters are increasingly critical of Israel, so the violent altercation involving a progressive congressman could be particularly sensitive for relations between the two countries.