"This is a day of joy for us," an official in the authority explained, "because the natural growth in the town and the new olim who seek specifically to live in Gush Etzion have caused the town to continue growing, but the number of houses in the town did not grow, so a cramped situation was created."
Efrat has been waging a sophisticated media campaign for renewal of construction. In one anonymously published video, a woman named Efrat was seen voicing disappointment over a man named Binyamin who neglected her after promising her the world. The video left people guessing, and eventually turned out to have been produced by the Efrat authority. The names of the protagonists referred to the town of Efrat and to Binyamin Netanyahu, who was not living up to promises he made to develop Efrat.