The number of 'Israeli' children living below the poverty line increased in 2006, a report said on Tuesday.

Some 35.8 percent of 'Israeli' children were regarded as poor in 2006, compared with 35.2 percent the previous year, said the report by the national insurance institute, which oversees social security issues in the occupied Palestine of 1948.

The overall number of people living in poverty eased to 24.5 percent of the population from 24.7 percent in 2005, it said.

The report, which comes out every six months, said that in 2006, there were 1.65 million poor Zionist settlers in the occupied lands of 1948, including 766,000 children, out of a population of slightly over seven million.