90,000 throng Al-Aqsa mosque for prayers

Ninety thousand Muslims attended the first Friday prayers of Ramadan at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City amid tight security, police said.

The Israeli authorities deployed thousands of police but reported no incidents in the Holy City.

"Everything was calm," police spokesman told Reporters.

He said, however, that a few dozen Palestinians hurled rocks at Israeli security forces that refused to let them through a checkpoint between the occupied West Bank to Jerusalem.

No one was injured in the incident, the police official said.

Palestinians from the West Bank are generally not allowed to enter Israel or east Jerusalem, which was seized and annexed by the Jewish State in 1967.

The defense ministry has eased the restrictions to allow Palestinians to pray in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound during the fasting month of Ramadan.

Married men over 50 and women over 45 have free access to the mosque compound, and those aged 30 to 45 can join them if they obtain a special permit issued by Israeli military authorities.

The compound is known as Al-Haram Al-Sharif to Muslims and is Islam's third holiest site after the Saudi cities of Mecca and Medina.

Jews refer to the same area as the Temple Mount, the location of the Second Jewish Temple razed by the Romans in 70 AD and Judaism's holiest site.