Efrat (), or previously officially Efrata (), is an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, established in 1983 in the Judean Mountains. Efrat is located south of Jerusalem, between Bethlehem and Hebron, east of the Green Line, at the Palestinian side of the West Bank wall. The settlement stands at an altitude of up to above sea level and covers about 6,000 dunam (1,500 acres). The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this. Considered the capital of Gush Etzion, it had a population of in . Although geographically located within Gush Etzion, it is independent from the Gush Etzion Regional Council, and Palestinians in negotiations do not consider it as part of that block, since it lies to the east of Route 60 — their side of the Geneva Initiative map. Since November 2008, Oded Ravivi, an attorney and lieutenant colonel in the army and member of the Likud Central Committee, is the head of Efrat regional council. Etymology Efrat is named after the biblical place Ephrath. While according to the Israeli Ministry of the Interior, "Efrata" is the quotation from the Biblical verse, and therefore the town's name, Efrata's residents and municipality have maintained for many years that the reference isn't the location's name, but rather means "towards Efrat". This has recently changed, with the residents and municipality convincing the ministry of the interior of the correct name. The '-a' ending is common in Hebrew and may indicate female grammatical gender or mean 'her' or less frequent 'towards'. On the other hand, there are very clear biblical references to "Ephratah", in a context it cannot possibly mean "towards Ephrat", e.g. , , , , . Therefore, there were until recently two names in use: Internal and private references speak of "Efrat", whereas all inter-city roadsigns, under purview of the National Government, read "Efrata" (and still do, not having been updated in light of the recent change). Status under international law Like all Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories, Efrat is considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this. Most of the international community considers Israeli settlements to violate the Fourth Geneva Convention's prohibition on the transfer of an occupying power's civilian population into occupied territory. Israel disputes that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the Palestinian territories as they had not been legally held by a