A total of 44 people have been arrested and 20 Israeli police officers were injured on a night of chaos in Jerusalem, as security forces clashed with Palestinians angry about Ramadan restrictions and Jewish extremists who held an anti-Arab march nearby.

Tensions have risen in recent days in Jerusalem, which has long been a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and is home to holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Residents braced for possible further unrest ahead of Muslim Friday prayers as police stepped up security measures.

Palestinians have clashed with Israeli police on a nightly basis since the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The tensions began when police placed barricades outside the Old City’s Damascus Gate, where Muslims traditionally gather to enjoy the evening after the daytime fast.

Later on Thursday, hundreds of Palestinians hurled stones and bottles at police, who fired water cannon and stun grenades to disperse them.

Dozens of Palestinians were injured during the unrest.

Meanwhile, a far-right Jewish group known as Lahava led a march of hundreds of protesters chanting “Arabs get out” toward the Damascus Gate.

The show of force came in response to videos circulated on TikTok showing Palestinians slapping religious Jews at random. Other videos made in response to them appear to show Jews assaulting Arabs.

Police used metal barricades to halt the far-right protesters a few hundred yards from Damascus Gate.

Later, they used water cannon, stun grenades and mounted police to push them back toward mostly Jewish west Jerusalem.

Videos circulated online showed smaller clashes and fires elsewhere in the city.

One video showed what appeared to be a group of Palestinians beating an ultra-Orthodox Jew near Damascus Gate.

They could be seen punching, kicking and throwing the man to the ground before police chased them off.

The police statement did not specify whether those arrested were Palestinian or Jewish and did not refer to any specific instances of violence.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 war and annexed it in a move not recognised by most of the international community.

The Palestinians want east Jerusalem to be the capital of their future state. Its fate has been one of the most divisive issues in the peace process, which ground to a halt more than a decade ago.

Thousands of Palestinians were expected to attend weekly prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City later on Friday.

The site is the third holiest in Islam and the holiest for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount.

The sprawling hilltop holy site has been the scene of clashes on a number of occasions over the years, and was the epicentre of the 2000 Palestinian intifada, or uprising.

Indian security forces on Tuesday killed five protesters and injured 10 in clashes that erupted after crowds angered by the killing of a separatist militant in disputed Kashmir pelted them with stones and defied a curfew, officials said.

Indian-ruled Kashmir has witnessed violent protests since July 8, when security forces killed a field commander of Pakistan-based Islamist militant group Hizbul Mujahideen who enjoyed widespread support in the Muslim-majority region.

Kashmir also saw an upsurge in violence around India’s Independence Day holiday on Monday, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the country would not bow to terrorism and accused neighbour and archrival Pakistan of glorifying it.

A senior police official said hundreds of protesters threw stones at security forces as they tried to restore order on the streets of Budgam, a district 30 km (18 miles) south of Srinagar, the state’s summer capital.

The latest casualties came as security forces opened fire with automatic rifles, a step up from their earlier use of shotguns, whose pellets are meant to incapacitate but not kill. Locals say the shotguns have inflicted severe injuries, and even blinded, hundreds of people, among them innocent bystanders.

Indian troops killed a total of seven militants on Monday in two incidents, five of them gunmen who had attempted a cross-border incursion and two more, who had attacked a Srinagar police station.One officer died in the police station shootout.

At least 64 people have been killed and thousands injured during 39 days of protests, while schools, shops, banks and offices remain closed in much of Kashmir as paramilitary troops patrol arterial roads, residential areas and mosques.

Kashmir is at the centre of a decades-old rivalry between India and Pakistan, which also rules its northern part, and backed an insurgency in the late 1980s and 1990s that Indian security forces largely crushed. Both countries claim Kashmir in full.

New Delhi has rejected Pakistan’s invitation to hold talks on the future of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s northernmost state, and Modi said he had received messages of support from leaders in restive parts of Pakistan.

In a speech on Monday, Modi accused Pakistan of committing atrocities in its own province of Baluchistan, escalating a war of words that Islamabad said was intended to divert attention from the troubles in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Modi’s defence minister, Manohar Parrikar, raised the temperature further on Tuesday, saying Indian troops had “sent back five terrorists yesterday”.

He told a rally, “Going to Pakistan is the same as going to hell.”