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Seventeen people including two Israeli policemen were wounded in clashes at Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound on Sunday, after police entered to arrest Palestinians who hurled rocks at visitors they believed were Jewish extremists.
The fighting came after days of protests over an Israeli plan to renovate two other contested holy sites in the occupied West Bank and was condemned as a further "provocation" by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
Dozens of Palestinians threw stones at Israeli police who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets in clashes near the 400-year-old walls of the Old City in mostly Arab east Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in 1967.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that seven people had been arrested, and that two of his men were hurt, while Palestinian sources said at least 15 people were injured in the confrontations.
Security forces entered the compound "as a preventive measure," after Muslim worshippers threw rocks at the group of unidentified visitors, Rosenfeld said, but by early afternoon the violence had mostly subsided.
"All of the Old City is calm, and thousands of tourists were allowed to visit the compound," Rosenfeld said.
Adnan Husseini, an official from Jerusalem's Islamic Supreme Committee, said the Palestinians had hurled stones at people they believed to be Jewish extremists intending to pray at the site and upset the delicate status quo.
Jews, who observe the Purim holiday on Sunday and Monday, are allowed into the compound, but authorities prevent them from praying there.
The Palestinians expressed outrage over the incidents, with chief negotiator Saeb Erakat calling for "urgent intervention" from the United States to get Israel to halt its "attacks" on Al-Aqsa and the two West Bank holy sites.
"These absurd Israeli policies are aimed at destroying international efforts and especially the US administration's efforts to restart a serious and genuine peace process," he said.
King Abdullah II of Jordan, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, and the head of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), likewise warned of dangerous repercussions.
"Israel's provocative aggressions on Al-Aqsa would have dangerous repercussions" and could threaten regional peace efforts, the king said.
OIC chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu warned that "any damage to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and other holy places will have serious consequences with unpredictable danger to international peace and security."
The Islamist Hamas movement ruling Gaza slammed what it called a "vile Zionist attack... which targets the identity of the Palestinian people, its faith, and the identity of the entire Islamic nation."
Al-Aqsa mosque compound is Islam's third-holiest site, after Mecca and Medina, and is the place where Muslims believe the Prophet Mohammed made a night journey to heaven on horseback.
It is the holiest site in the world for Jews, who believe it was the location of the Second Temple, torched by the Romans in 70 AD.
The site has been bitterly contested for decades, and the second Palestinian uprising, or intifada, erupted there in September 2000 after a visit by Ariel Sharon, a right-wing politician who went on to become Israeli prime minister.
Violence also erupted there on several occasions starting last September after Muslim worshippers hurled stones at people they believed to be Jewish extremists but whom Israeli authorities insisted were French tourists.
The latest disturbance came after days of unrest in the West Bank town of Hebron over an Israeli plan to renovate the Tomb of the Patriarchs there, another ancient site revered by Jews and Muslims.
The plan, which also includes Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, has infuriated Palestinians and been criticised by the United States as a "provocative" act.
