Palestinians torched a site in the West Bank revered by Jews in an incident that threatened to further arouse two weeks of deadly unrest, as fresh protests erupted on Friday.

UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon condemned the arson attack at the opening of an emergency session of the Security Council called to discuss the escalating violence.

The attack came as Palestinians called for a "Friday of revolution" against Israel, and police barred men under 40 from attending the main Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque, seeking to keep young protesters away.

The violence comes at a time when a possible partition of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean into two states ? Palestine alongside Israel ? is fading. This has actually left many Palestinians disappointed because all paths to independence appear blocked. The tensions have also been fueled by Palestinian fears that Israel is trying to expand its presence at a major Muslim-run shrine in Jerusalem, a claim Israel has denied.

Israel's new U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of inciting violence against Israel with what he called "hate-filled speech," including claims that Israel is trying to change the status quo at the hilltop Jerusalem compound. The shrine is venerated by Muslims as the spot where Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven and by Jews as the home of their biblical Temples.

8 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, most of them stabbings, over the past one month. During the same period, 36 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire ? 15 labeled by Israel as attackers, and the others in clashes between Israeli troops and stone-throwers.

Munadil Hanani, a protest organizer in Beit Furik, said hundreds of Palestinians walked to an Israeli military post and threw stones at troops who responded with live rounds and rubber-coated steel pellets.

Tensions escalated in recent days after Israel announced plans to destroy the family homes of several suspects in a shooting ambush earlier this month that killed an Israeli couple who lived in a nearby Jewish settlement, Hanani added.

In the West Bank city of Nablus, several Palestinians firebombed a site known as Joseph's Tomb that is revered by Jews as the burial place of the son of the biblical patriarch Jacob. The attack blackened exterior walls of the stone structure situated close to the Balata refugee camp and a scene of Israeli-Palestinian clashes in the past.

On the other hand, in the West Bank city of Hebron, a 26-year-old Palestinian laborer posed as a journalist covering a stone-throwing clash to get close to Israeli soldiers. Wearing a T-shirt with the word "press" on the back and front, the man mingled with journalists standing near the soldiers, who were firing tear gas at stone-throwers.

The troops rushed to the scene where one of the soldiers had been stabbed, and provided medical aid to the wounded soldier who was eventually taken away by ambulance. The attacker, identified as Eyad Awawdeh, lay on the ground, clutching a knife in his right hand.