JERUSALEM: The number of Israeli settiers living in the West Bank at the end of 2011 rose by 4.3 per cent compared with the previous year to 342,414, an Israeli lawmaker said in a statement on Sunday.

Citing official data obtained from the interior ministry, Yaakov Katz of the far-right National Union party said there were now more than 700,000 Israelis living in areas occupied by Israel in 1967, including east Jerusalem and the Golan.

He said some 300,000 Jews now live in east Jerusalem, along with 20,000 in the Golan Heights, both beyond the so-called Green Line, the armistice line agreed upon after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

Another 60,000 Jewish Israelis study at institutions in West Bank settlements, meaning there are 'currently 720,000 Jews residing beyond the Green Line,' he said.

Katz said the 4.3 per cent rise in the West Bank was low compared with 2009, when the figure jumped by seven per cent from the previous year.

He also pointed out that the growth took place primarily in areas where the land was owned by regional councils, rather than in 'settlement blocs' and cities or local councils, where the defence ministry must approve any new construction.—AFP