JERUSALEM (Reuters): Israeli police clashed with stone-throwing Palestinians in Arab East Jerusalem after prayers yesterday as hundreds protested against excavations and planned construction work near Islam's third holiest site.

A police spokesman said officers fired stun grenades at stone throwers and arrested 15 protesters after Friday prayers. He said some of the demonstrators tried to break into restricted areas.

"The police dispersed a number of disturbances in the Ras al-Amud neighbourhood (of East Jerusalem)," spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

In a number of towns and checkpoints throughout the occupied West Bank, Israeli troops used tear gas to disperse stone-throwing Palestinian youths, local witnesses said.

Two Israeli soldiers were shot and lightly wounded by Palestinian gunmen in clashes at a checkpoint near Jerusalem, an army spokeswoman said. The dig is intended to salvage ancient artefacts before construction can begin on a new walkway leading to the holy complex known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as Temple Mount.