By Rebecca Harrison

JERUSALEM, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Israel tightened security around Arab East Jerusalem and stopped thousands of West Bank Palestinians from praying at the revered al-Aqsa mosque on the first Friday of Ramadan but no violence was reported.

This year the holy month of Ramadan coincided with the Jewish New Year holiday, when Israel normally blocks access into the country from the occupied West Bank, raising concerns about possible tension at Jerusalem's holy sites.

But Israel Radio said prayers at the al-Aqsa mosque, which drew some 93,000 faithful, ended without incident.

Israeli police and soldiers at checkpoints near the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem turned away thousands of Palestinians who were trying to travel to Jerusalem for Friday prayers, witnesses said.

The Israeli army said that no men under the age of 45 and women under the age of 30 from the West Bank would be allowed to enter the city.

In Jerusalem, police erected road blocks around the walled old city, home to the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest site, and to sites sacred to Jews and Christians, a Reuters witness said.

Palestinian Religious Affairs Minister Jamal Bawatneh said in Ramallah Israel's block on some Palestinians reaching al-Aqsa was "an assault against the dearest thing the believers have, which is the faith".

Friday prayers were also quiet in Gaza, despite simmering tensions between ruling Hamas Islamists and supporters of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, after Hamas routed its secular rivals in Gaza in June.

Hamas's leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, who was prime minister in the Palestinian government that Abbas sacked after the takeover, said the rival factions should use Ramadan to unite against the threat of a broader Israeli offensive.

"We are required to unite, first because of the blessed month of Ramadan and second because of the serious Israeli threats against our Palestinian people," Haniyeh said in a sermon.

Tensions between the Jewish state and Hamas have increased sharply in recent days following a rocket attack by militants which wounded at least 35 Israeli army conscripts at their camp near the Gaza Strip earlier this week.

An Israeli aircraft fired a missile at a car carrying militants from the Islamic Jihad group but they escaped unharmed, residents said.

An Israeli army spokesman confirmed the strike and said the militants were travelling to a launching ground to fire another salvo of rockets into Israel. He added that at least 10 mortar bombs had been fired into the Jewish state on Friday.

Earlier a small Israeli ground force entered the southern Gaza Strip but there were no reports of injuries or damage, the army and local residents said. Israeli forces frequently carry out operations in border areas.

In the West Bank, the army and emergency services said two Israelis travelling in a car were wounded in a drive-by shooting near the town of Nablus. The West Bank has been relatively calm since Israel and the West adopted a policy of bolstering Abbas' security forces to sideline Hamas. (Additional reporting by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem, Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza)

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