Clashes Al-Aqsa after Jewish worshippers went to pray at the mosque compound

Clashes erupted in Jerusalem's Old City on Sunday after a scuffle between Jewish and Muslim faithful at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, a flashpoint site revered by both faiths, police and witnesses said.

Palestinian youths hurled rocks at dozens of Israeli police officers, who were deployed throughout the winding streets of the Old City, and police retaliated with stun grenades, witnesses said.

Police said eight people had been arrested and witnesses reported seeing around a dozen people injured, though the nature of the wounds was unclear.

"There are tensions in the Old City, especially in the Muslim quarter... there are numerous police officers deployed," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP, adding that police had the situation under control.

The unrest erupted after a group of Jewish worshippers went to pray at the mosque compound, known to Muslims as Al-Haram Al-Sharif (The Noble Sanctuary) and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

"A group of Jewish worshippers who came to pray at the Temple Mount were attacked by some 150 Muslims who threw rocks at them, and we intervened to separate the sides," Rosenfeld said.

Immediately after the clash, police blocked off the compound as speakers from mosques in the Old City called on people to assemble at the site.

"With our blood, with our souls, we sacrifice for you Al-Aqsa," groups of mostly Palestinian youths chanted as they gathered outside the compound's locked gates.

The Al-Aqsa mosque compound is the holiest site in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam, and has often been the flashpoint of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

The second Palestinian uprising, or intifada, erupted there after former Israeli premier Ariel Sharon made a controversial visit in September 2000.

Sunday's unrest came as Israel prepared to shut down for Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar when the country comes to a standstill and shuts itself off from the world, with airports and border crossings closed.

Israel captured the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it along with the rest of mostly Arab east Jerusalem in a move not recognised by the international community.