Clashes as Israeli police enter Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque

Clashes erupted inside the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem early on Wednesday as Israeli police said they had entered to dislodge "agitators", a move denounced as an "unprecedented crime" by the Palestinian radical movement Hamas.

Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, called on Palestinians in the West Bank "to go en masse to the Al-Aqsa mosque to defend it".

Israeli police said they had entered the mosque to dislodge "agitators" who had barricaded themselves inside with fireworks, sticks and stones.

The mosque compound in the Israeli-annexed Old City of east Jerusalem has previously seen clashes and violence between Palestinians and Israelis, particularly during the holy month of Ramadan, which draws tens of thousands of worshippers to Al-Aqsa.

The fresh violence comes nearly halfway through Ramadan and as Jews prepare to celebrate Passover from Wednesday evening.

Israeli police have released video footage showing what appear to be fireworks explosions inside the mosque and figures throwing rocks.

Another police video shows riot police with shields advancing through the mosque under a barrage of fireworks explosions.

The footage then shows a barricaded door and boxes of fireworks on the floor, as well as police escorting at least five people outside with their hands cuffed behind their backs.

Israeli police said they were forced to enter the mosque after "several law-breaking youths and masked agitators" barricaded themselves inside.

"These instigators fortified it, hours after the (last evening) Taraweeh prayer in order to disrupt public order and desecrate the mosque," the police said in a statement.

"After many and prolonged attempts to get them out by talking to no avail, police forces were forced to enter the compound in order to get them out with the intentions to allow the Fajr (dawn) prayer and to prevent a violent disturbance," they added.

"When the police entered, stones were thrown at them and fireworks were fired from inside the mosque by a large group of agitators," they continued, adding that one officer was injured in the leg by a stone.

Police "detained the rioters", who "caused damage to the mosque and desecrated it", the statement said, without specifying the number of people detained.

After the announcement of the clashes at Al-Aqsa, several rockets were fired from the northern Gaza Strip towards Israeli territory, according to AFP journalists and witnesses.

AFP journalists said they saw three rockets fired from afar and witnesses said they saw others, while the Israeli army reported rocket warning sirens had been triggered in several Israeli urban centres around the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army said five rockets fired from the Gaza Strip were intercepted by the aerial defence system around Sderot in southern Israel, and that four others had fallen in uninhabited areas.