Palestinian police guarding a West Bank church exchanged fire with assailants and chased them away early Saturday, witnesses said.

Shortly after midnight, the sound of heavy gun fire was heard outside the
Roman Catholic Church in the West Bank city of Nablus. Resident Abdel Salam Abu Rob said police guarding the church were exchanging fire with would-be assailants. Police guards were posted at churches in the West Bank and Gaza last weekend, after a first spate of attacks.

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Residents said they heard intensive fire for about 20 minutes. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage to the church.

The attempted attack came a few hours before Ahmed Houssein Mufti of Jerusalem, announced the opening of the Ramadan in the Palestinian territories.

Ramadan, the holiest month in the Muslim calendar, is due to begin elsewhere on Sunday.

On Friday, three pipe bombs were thrown at a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza city, a church official said.

The church official, Nabil Ayad, said one bomb was thrown at the facade of the church, shattering glass windows of a nearby van. The main entrance was blackened.

Two other explosives were thrown inside the church compound, he said. The extent of damage was yet not clear, but there were no reports of injuries.

Earlier Friday, hundreds of Palestinians gathered on Friday at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque to protest against remarks by Pope Benedict XVI that they view as an affront to Islam.

The demonstration at the Jerusalem mosque concluded peacefully. Some of the 300 demonstrators hoisted banners that read, "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet."

Benedict touched off the furor in the Muslim world last week by quoting a medieval text that characterized some of Mohammed's teachings as "evil and inhuman," and described Islam as a religion spread by the sword.

Earlier in the week, protesters attacked seven churches in the West Bank and Gaza, causing some damage but no injuries. The interior of a 180-year-old Greek Orthodox church in the West Bank town of Tul Karm was destroyed by fire.

Also on Friday, Pope Benedict invited the ambassadors of Muslim countries at the Vatican, as well as Muslim religious leaders, to a meeting on Monday at his summer palace, a senior Vatican official said.

The Vatican had said it would call such a meeting as part of diplomatic efforts to explain to offended Muslims that the pope's speech had been misunderstood.