Scuffles broke out between Jewish and Muslim faithful at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound, a flashpoint site in the Old City revered by both faiths, prompting Israeli police to fire stun grenades.
The clashes erupted after a group of Jewish worshippers went to pray at the site known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif (The Noble Sanctuary) and to Jews as the Temple Mount, police said.
"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," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.
"Two policemen were wounded and calm has been restored," he said.
Israel captured the Temple Mount in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it with the rest of East Jerusalem, in a move not recognized internationally.
Israeli police blocked off the compound as speakers from mosques in the Old City called on people to assemble at the site, the holiest place in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam, and which has often been the flashpoint of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
The clashes broke out as Israel prepared to shut down for Yom Kippur, or 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.
On the eve of Yom Kippur last year, Jewish youths in the Israeli town of Acre attacked an Arab man who drove into a mostly Jewish district disturbing the start of the 24-hour fasting day. Several homes and shops were damaged in ensuing riots.