Riots between Jews and Arabs swept through the ancient port city of Acre in northern Israel for two days after youths attacked an Arab man for driving his car during the most solemn holiday of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur.

Hundreds of riot police were deployed as mobs smashed cars, hurled rocks and attacked shops in the normally quiet city on Israel’s northern coast, whose Crusader fortress and walled port make it a popular tourist destination. Police raised their level of alert across the country in anticipation of further unrest.

Police said that the trouble started when an Arab man drove through a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood playing his car stereo loudly, prompting a group of Jewish youths to attack him for disturbing the sanctity of the Day of Atonement holiday, when the Jewish majority refrain from driving motor vehicles.

"Rumours then spread out, namely from mosques, claiming that the motorist had been killed, prompting several hundred Arabs to take to the streets," Mickey Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said.

Two nights of unrest then swept through the city, with police sealing off all access roads and using tear gas and water cannon to disperse crowds, who chanted slogans at each other and lobbed rocks. Around 10 people were arrested and several wounded, including a police officer.

Police were on particularly high alert in other mixed areas, and particularly in the Old City of Jerusalem, where forces were beefed up ahead of Friday Muslim prayers at the Dome of the Rock compound. There were also reports of Arab youths throwing stones at a Jewish seminary in another area of the city.

Avi Dichter, the Public Security Minister, said that he would ensure the instigators of the riots were arrested and blamed MPs on both sides for making inflammatory comments, with leaders from both communities accusing the other of carrying out a pogrom.

The city council cancelled a theatre festival planned for next week during another Jewish holiday, Sukkot, prompting accusations of caving in to violence.

The driver of the car at the centre of the riots denied allegations that he had deliberately tried to provoke the Jewish community, saying that he had driven his 18-year-old son and a friend quietly to pick up his daughter.

Police spokesman Eran Shaked dismissed his claims. "This was a provocation. An Arab driver arrived in a Jewish neighbourhood on Yom Kippur with blaring music, and refused to leave when asked to by local residents. We believe he was intoxicated. This was a deliberate act." The driver and his two passengers were lightly wounded as Jewish residents threw rocks and bottles at their vehicle.

The riots were the worst of their kind in years, and underlined the simmering tensions between Israel’s Jewish majority and the Arab minority, who make up around 20 percent of the population. Arab Israelis have full rights as citizens, with their own MPs and parties in parliament, but often complain of discrimination, while far-right Jewish politicians openly view them with distrust for their close historic links to the Palestinians. Many Arab Israelis, descended from Arabs who stayed in Israel after the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, now prefer to call themselves Israeli Palestinians.

"We must guard vigilantly the ability to live together in co-existence in these towns," said Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister. Previous breakdowns in relations have led to bloodshed in the past. In October 2000, police killed 13 Arab protestors in a violent demonstration against Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

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