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A Palestinian municipal official in the southern West Bank town of Dura warned Monday that the formal groundbreaking of a new Israeli settlement on the town's western lands represents a direct threat to Palestinian existence in the region, as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attended a cornerstone-laying ceremony for the Doran settlement.
Ziyad al-Rajub, a member of the Dura Municipal Council, said Smotrich's move was not an isolated act but part of a broader Israeli settlement agenda targeting Palestinian land and communities across the area.
"Smotrich's formal launch of construction of the Doran settlement on our town's lands is part of wide-ranging settlement plans targeting Palestinian land and presence in the region," al-Rajub said in remarks to Anadolu Agency.
Al-Rajub said Dura's land area, which stood at approximately 240,000 dunams before 1948, has contracted to around 150,000 dunams today due to what he described as geographic and political changes compounded by growing settlement pressure.
He identified the town's western sector as among the areas most exposed to that pressure, given its mountainous terrain and expanses stretching toward Palestinian hills and the coast.
Elevations in the area range from roughly 600 meters on its outer edges to about 880 meters near the town center, making it geographically diverse and economically dependent on agriculture and small-scale livestock herding.
Al-Rajub said any alteration to the area's geographic character would carry broad social, economic and psychological consequences for local residents.
The official described illegal Israeli settlement outposts already planted on hilltops surrounding Dura as forming what he called "a geographic barrier" that blocks movement and communication between Palestinian communities in the area.
Several Palestinian families, he said, are already dispersed across multiple locations around Dura, with the physical fragmentation directly affecting their daily lives, mobility and social ties.
Al-Rajub characterized the situation as "an open assault" on Palestinian land and a direct threat to the livelihoods of communities that depend primarily on farming and herding.
He said local capacity to resist the pressure was "weak and insufficient" under occupation, and he called on the international community, particularly Muslim-majority nations, to take urgent action to halt Israeli settlement policies.
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