Violence resumed in Jerusalem today after prayers when stone-throwing Palestinians clashed with Israeli border police in east Jerusalem.

In the Shoafat district, police fired tear gas to disperse protesters hurling firecrackers and burning tires that sent up huge clouds of black smoke.

In overnight confrontations a police watch tower was hit by molotov cocktails in Shoafat, a video posted on social media showed.

No casualties were reported in Jerusalem but Palestinians said that at least seven people were injured in West Bank confrontations.

Jerusalem has seen a wave of unrest over the past four months, since before the July-August Gaza war. Violence has spiked in the past two weeks, with Palestinian drivers ramming into Israeli pedestrians, killing four people.

A focus of Palestinian and regional anger has been a dispute over Jerusalem's holiest site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount.

For decades, Israel has maintained a ban on Jews praying at the site, which houses the Dome of the Rock and the 8th-century al-Aqsa mosque. It was also the site of ancient Jewish temples.

Earlier today many young Palestinians held prayers in various east Jerusalem neighborhoods after Israeli police restricted entry to al-Aqsa to men aged over 35, Israeli radio said.