TEHRAN Israeli tanks firing shells and bulldozers moved into a Palestinian-controlled city in the Gaza Strip on Friday after a Palestinian grenade attack which the army said wounded two soldiers.

Palestinian security officials said the vehicles destroyed a police post and three houses up to 800 meters (yards) inside Deir al-Balah. The tanks fired a few shells and blocked a main east-west road to split the strip in two, they said.

The army said earlier that Palestinians had hurled two or three grenades at an army post, wounding the soldiers, close to the Gush Katif Zionist settlement bloc in Gaza.

A caller to Reuters claimed responsibility for the grenade attack on an army base in the name of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Iman Hejjo Unit, a reference to a four-month-old baby girl killed by Israeli fire during an attack this week.

Israelis and Palestinians were locked in fresh fighting on Friday hours after Israel fired missiles at Palestinian targets in Gaza.

Palestinian gunmen battled Israeli troops near Rafah, close to the Egypt-Gaza border. Exchanges of gunfire were also reported at several points in the West Bank.

The latest violence at Rafah, where the army had destroyed several buildings the day before, has flared intermittently since early on Thursday. At least 12 Palestinians have been wounded.

Palestinians pledged to continue their uprising against Israeli occupation after five Israeli missiles slammed into a Palestinian security compound and an office of President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction in the heart of Gaza City.

At least 13 people were wounded in the attack, eight of them civilians.

Also, Israeli police barred Palestinians aged under 25 from Friday prayers in Al-Aqsa Mosque compound following clashes in the past few weeks, a spokesman said.

Large numbers of police were also deployed in Bait-ul-Moqaddas in the neighborhood of the compound, the third holiest site in Islam. The spokesman said that previous Fridays had seen incidents of stone-throwing and confrontations with the police.

Tension is high between Israelis and Palestinians after Israel hit Palestinian security forces headquarters in Gaza City with missiles Thursday, wounding some 20 people.

The Palestinians have been leading an Intifada (uprising) against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since late September.

Meanwhile, Jordanian riot police used tear gas and dogs to break up an Islamist march in support of Palestinians after Friday prayer in Amman, witnesses said.

Hundreds of worshippers, chanting Islam's rallying cry of "Allah-o-Akbar", or God Is Greatest, followed a call by the Muslim Brotherhood group by taking to the streets after praying at a mosque in the Amman suburb of Sweileh.

But hundreds of police backed by armored vehicles blocked their route, unleashing dogs and firing tear gas to disperse the crowd.

At least two protesters were detained, witnesses said.

Jordanian authorities have banned demonstrations and public gatherings in Amman after a series of protests in support of a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.

The Muslim Brotherhood and other opposition parties were also planning to hold a rally in Amman later in the day in defiance of the government.