Lawmakers on Sunday continued to reel from the shooting of two Democratic Minnesota state legislators in their homes that led to the death of one and her husband, contemplating a previously unthinkable world where democratically-elected representatives need full-time security details to protect them from the public.
“I don’t want to think that I have to a personal security detail everywhere I go, but I think we really have to look at the situation that we’re in,” Democratic Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith said Sunday on NBC News. “This is no way for our government to work when people, any number of us, feel this kind of threat."
The state's other U.S. Senator, Amy Klobuchar, directly addressed the increasingly toxic atmosphere around politics as she remembered state Rep. Melissa Hortman, who was killed in the attack.
“These are real people, and before you start ascribing motives or going after them online maybe you should think about Melissa Hortman’s life," Klobuchar, a Democrat, said on CNN. "This is a person that did everything for the right reasons. Regardless of political parties, look at her face before you send out your next post.”
The attack that killed Hortman, her husband Mark and gravely wounded state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife was a nightmare scenario for the thousands of Americans who serve as legislators across the 50 states and in Washington. They routinely attend public events with little or no security screening and live with their families in communities torn by the nation's political divides.
The suspect, Vance Boelter, 57, was caught late Sunday.
The attacks amid a recent flurry of political violence that appears to be coming from all ideological corners.
U.S. Capitol Police increased security for Klobuchar and Smith following the attacks, which occurred early Saturday morning. Minnesota's entire congressional delegation, both Republicans and Democrats, released a joint statement condemning the killings.
“Today we speak with one voice to express our outrage, grief, and condemnation of this horrible attack on public servants,” the statement said. “There is no place in our democracy for politically-motivated violence.”
“Nothing brings us together more than, you know, mourning for somebody else who’s in political life,” GOP Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said on NBC. “Republican or Democrats. You know, we come together about this.”
Paul said that he himself had been the victim of political violence when he was attacked by a neighbor in 2017, as well as at the Republican practice for the Congressional baseball game where a gunman severely injured several people, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.
Associated Press writer Gary Fields contributed reporting.
FILE - Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., speaks with reporters on Capitol Hill, Dec. 3, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
FILE - Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., speaks during a confirmation hearing at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
JERUSALEM (AP) — Over two dozen families from one of the few remaining Palestinian Bedouin villages in the central West Bank have packed up and fled their homes in recent days, saying harassment by Jewish settlers living in unauthorized outposts nearby has grown unbearable.
The village, Ras Ein el-Auja, was originally home to some 700 people from more than 100 families that have lived there for decades.
Twenty-six families already left on Thursday, scattering across the territory in search of safer ground, say rights groups. Several other families were packing up and leaving on Sunday.
“We have been suffering greatly from the settlers. Every day, they come on foot, or on tractors, or on horseback with their sheep into our homes. They enter people’s homes daily,” said Nayef Zayed, a resident, as neighbors took down sheep pens and tin structures.
Israel's military and the local settler governing body in the area did not respond to requests for comment.
Other residents pledged to stay put for the time being. That makes them some of the last Palestinians left in the area, said Sarit Michaeli, international director at B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group helping the residents.
She said that mounting settler violence has already emptied neighboring Palestinian hamlets in the dusty corridor of land stretching from Ramallah in the West to Jericho, along the Jordanian border, in the east.
The area is part of the 60% of the West Bank that has remained under full Israeli control under interim peace accords signed in the 1990s. Since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted in October 2023, over 2,000 Palestinians — at least 44 entire communities — have been expelled by settler violence in the area, B'Tselem says.
The turning point for the village came in December, when settlers put up an outpost about 50 meters (yards) from Palestinian homes on the northwestern flank of the village, said Michaeli and Sam Stein, an activist who has been living in the village for a month.
Settlers strolled easily through the village at night. Sheep and laundry went missing. International activists had to begin escorting children to school to keep them safe.
“The settlers attack us day and night, they have displaced us, they harass us in every way” said Eyad Isaac, another resident. “They intimidate the children and women.”
Michaeli said she’s witnessed settlers walk around the village at night, going into homes to film women and children and tampering with the village’s electricity.
The residents said they call the police frequently to ask for help — but it seldom arrives. Settlement expansion has been promoted by successive Israeli governments over nearly six decades. But Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, which has placed settler leaders in senior positions, has made it a top priority.
That growth has been accompanied by a spike in settler violence, much of it carried out by residents of unauthorized outposts. These outposts often begin with small farms or shepherding that are used to seize land, say Palestinians and anti-settlement activists. United Nations officials warn the trend is changing the map of the West Bank, entrenching Israeli presence in the area.
Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank since Israel captured the territory, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. Their presence is viewed by most of the international community as illegal and a major obstacle to peace. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state.
For now, displaced families of the village have dispersed between other villages near the city of Jericho and near Hebron further south, said residents. Some sold their sheep and are trying to move into the cities.
Others are just dismantling their structures without knowing where to go.
"Where will we go? There’s nowhere. We’re scattered,” said Zayed, the resident, “People’s situation is bad. Very bad.”
An Israeli settler herds his flock near his outpost beside the Palestinian village of Ras Ein al-Auja in the West Bank, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
A Palestinian resident of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank burns trash, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Palestinian children play in the West Bank village of Ras Ein al-Auja, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
