Police on Wednesday arrested an Israeli Islamic leader protesting against excavations and repairs at a disputed holy site in the old city of Jerusalem.

Raed Salah, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, and six supporters were taken for questioning after a confrontation with police guarding construction work at the site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary.

Palestinian women carry a model of a mosque during a protest against the Israeli government's construction works outside the disputed Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem's Old City.
(Associated Press/Hatem Moussa)

Six of Salah's supporters were also arrested, but it's not clear whether police will charge any of those detained.

Palestinians fear the construction could damage the foundations of the Dome of the Rock shrine and the al-Aqsa mosque, which are built on the site.

On Wednesday, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urged Islamic nations to retaliate against Israel. Khamenei did not say what sort of response he intended, but he said the Islamic world should make Israel "regret" what it is doing.

A day earlier, Palestinian leaders also condemned the project, despite Israeli assurances no harm would come to the Islamic holy site, considered the third holiest in Islam.

"What is happening is an aggression," Mohammed Hussein, the top Muslim cleric in Jerusalem, told a Hamas radio station. "We call on the Palestinian people to unite and unify the efforts to protect Jerusalem."

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said about 2,000 police — double the usual number — were on duty to prevent violent demonstrations against Israel's plan to rebuild a crumbling walkway to the compound.

The walkway was damaged in 2004 during a snowstorm. Repairs are supposed to take eight months.

With files from the Associated Press