“Upon arrival, the troops dispersed the Israeli civilians and allowed the vehicles to continue on their way,” the IDF said.

Khanna was visiting the ruins of Khirbet Zanuta, on a research visit to observe the impact of the Israeli occupation of the area.

The politician, father of two children, is reflecting on a presidential candidacy in 2028.

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

“And these thugs come with machine guns – M4, an American-made machine gun – and they stop us. They block the road. And then they call the IDF and the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans,” Khanna said.

While they were detained, an aide who was with Khanna said they asked the US embassy in Jerusalem for help and were released after a group of police officers intervened.

Israel has built around 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem (land the Palestinians want, along with Gaza, for a hoped-for future state) during the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them.

The settlements are illegal under international law.