Israeli police restricted access to prayers at annexed east Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque, as security occupation forces went on high alert a day after a Palestinian resistance bombing in Tel Aviv.Israel banned access to the disputed site to Muslim males under 40 following intelligence reports that Palestinian groups were planning a repeat of incidents which broke out on October 4, police sources said Friday.

Police were rehearsing for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which begins in early November and during which hundreds of thousands of worshippers are expected to flock to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam.

The previous Friday, a group of Palestinians started pelting stones at Jewish worshippers praying below at the Western Wall, at Judaism's the most sacred site.

The tight security deployment around the Old City in east Jerusalem also came as Israel appeared to opt for restraint but went on high alert for more attacks, a day after a resistance bombing killed an Israeli woman in Tel Aviv and broke a three-week lull in kamikaze operations.

The armed wing of the resistance group Hamas claimed responsibility for Thursday's bombing, in which a far higher death toll was averted when the bomber slipped and fell after the bus doors closed on him as he tried to sneak in.

"The Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades claim full responsibility for this operation carried out by one of its martyrs," the group said in a statement.

The military wing of Hamas, which has claimed the bulk of recent resistance operations against Israel, said the attack was in retaliation for the July 22 bombing of a crowded Gaza City neighbourhood in which their leader was killed as well as 16 other people.

It also said Thursday's bombing near Tel Aviv's Bar Ilan university was to avenge the deaths of another 17 Palestinians, mainly civilians, in an occupation army operation into the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis on Monday.

Palestinian security sources named the resistance bomber as Rafiq Amr, a 31-year-old Hamas resistance man from the village of Habla, which lies just inside the Green Line with Israel near the northern West Bank city of Qalqilya.

Violence, which has continued unabated in the Gaza Strip for weeks, flared again early Friday when Israeli tanks staged a brief incursion into autonomous Palestinian territory near the northern town of Beit Hanoun.

The tanks fired five shells and opened heavy machine-gun fire, damaging several houses but causing no injuries, Palestinian security sources said.

However, the national Resistance Brigades, military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, issued a statement saying its resistance men ambushed two cars carrying Jewish settlers in the area.

"Our military group ambushed two settler taxis near Nitzanit, opened fire and threw hand grenades, injuring one settler," the statement said, adding that an Israeli helicopter evacuated the wounded.

On Thursday, two Palestinian boys were killed in Israeli raids in Gaza despite international condemnation over the deadly Khan Yunis raid.

Although the Gaza Strip has borne the brunt of recent Israeli raids, sparking Palestinian fears of a total military reoccupation of the self-rule territory, the situation also remains tense in the West Bank.

An Israeli borderguard was wounded by Palestinian gunfire Thursday night in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

The Palestinians were braced for a further backlash following the resistance bombing, but Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has had less room for maneuver since the United States stepped up its preparations for war on Iraq.

Israel was reprimanded by the United States, its staunchest ally, after the Khan Yunis raid, as Washington fears Sharon's tough methods could limit regional support ahead of an offensive against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

PHOTO CAPTION

Palestinians take cover as a shell explodes nearby during clashes with Israeli occupation troops in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip , Thursday, Oct. 10, 2002. Despite international condemnation for an Israeli incursion into Gaza earlier in the week, Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that such military operations would continue. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)