OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, Feb 10: Palestinian youths clashed with Israeli forces in occupied Jerusalem and across the West Bank on Saturday as protests flared again against Israeli ‘renovation work’ near the holy city's most contentious site.

Muslim leaders have vowed to press on with demonstrations against the repair work near the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City of occupied east Jerusalem that has angered Muslims across the world.

Israel has mobilised more than 2,000 police to quash any further unrest after protest demonstrations in Jerusalem on Friday left least 20 Palestinians wounded.

Cracks have appeared within the Israeli government about whether to continue with the renovation work which the Arab League condemned as a “criminal attack” on Islam's third holiest site.

The prospect of further unrest loomed with Muslim leaders warning that work near the site which Jews call the Temple Mount and is known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary could trigger a third intifada, or uprising.

“We have a full programme of protests for the coming weeks in order to stop the Israeli crimes against the Al-Aqsa Mosque,” said the head of the Islamic movement in Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah.

“Continuing the work will increase the tension and anger among Palestinians and in the Arab-Islamic world,” he added.

Six Palestinian protesters were arrested outside the Old City's Flower Gate on Saturday and police had to rescue Canadian tourists whose bus came under attack from Palestinian stone throwers, police said.

In the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Israeli troops arrested 30 Palestinians who were hurling rocks at Rachel's Tomb, an army spokesman said. Clashes also erupted in the flashpoint city of Hebron and at the Qalandiya checkpoint separating Jerusalem from the West Bank, according to witnesses.

Leaders of Israel's Labour party called for the work on a stone ramp leading to the compound near Dung Gate to halt but others insisted that Muslim leaders would not dictate policy with street violence.

“There is no reason to yield the country to a handful of extremists from the Islamic movement who want to escalate the violence,” Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said.

“This ramp will be built, it is a done deal, and there will not be a third intifada as a result,” said Dichter, the former chief of Israel's internal security agency, Shin Beth.—AFP