Israeli border police take cover during clashes with Palestinian youth at Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem on Tuesday. (Mahmoud Illean/AP)

Israeli police on Tuesday banned non-Muslims from a contentious Jerusalem holy site until the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, after two days of clashes with Palestinians at the site.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said rocks and other objects were hurled toward police forces and Jewish worshipers in a nearby plaza. A 73-year-old woman was lightly wounded, Rosenfeld said, and police arrested 16 suspects.

As a result, police decided to close access to Jewish worshipers and other visitors for the remainder of the week.

Since Sunday, Palestinians had holed up in the al-Aqsa Mosque and attacked officers with fireworks and other objects stockpiled inside.

The mosque is part of a compound sacred to both Muslims and Jews.

Violence had erupted at the site in mid-September before spreading elsewhere. Since then Palestinians have carried out dozens of deadly attacks.

The unrest has led to renewed calls for peace talks.

Also Tuesday, visiting U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that though he understood Israel’s security concerns, any measures it took would not “solve the underlying causes of the cycles of violence” that have plagued the region.

“I encourage you to take the courageous steps necessary to prevent a one-state reality of perpetual conflict that is incompatible with realizing the national aspirations of Israeli and Palestinian people,” Ban said.

Peace negotiations with the Palestinians have been largely at a standstill since Netanyahu took office in 2009, with the last round of talks collapsing two years ago.

Later in the day, Ban met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank, where he called on Palestinian leaders “to act effectively, particularly against incitement.”

With little hope for a resumption of talks, a group of retired Israeli security chiefs on Tuesday presented a plan for breaking the deadlock.

The group, Commanders for Israel’s Security, is proposing Israeli steps that it says would enhance security and improve conditions for restarting talks toward a final negotiated peace deal.

The group includes more than 200 retired generals and former senior officials from the Mossad and Shin Bet security agencies and national police.

Their “Security First” plan calls for Israel to complete construction of its West Bank separation barrier and relinquish claims to all land outside the structure — or more than 90 percent of the territory. It also recommends freezing some settlement construction and taking steps to improve the Palestinian economy, including in Arab areas of East Jerusalem.

The Palestinians seek all of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as parts of a future state.