AFP - Around 2,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews demonstrated outside the Jerusalem plant of Intel on Saturday, to protest against the factory operating on the Jewish day of rest.

The demonstrators chanted "Shabbat, Shabbat" and called on the company to keep the factory shut on the holy day, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben Ruby, adding that there were no reports of violence.

Talks between Intel, the world's biggest maker of semiconductors, and the city's ultra-Orthodox community broke down this week and the company ringed its factory with barbed wire ahead of the planned protests.

"We have always worked according to the company's needs. If the needs call for it, we work on the Sabbath as well," Intel Israel spokesman Kobi Becker told the Ynet news Website. "It is all in accordance with the law. There has been no change in the status quo," he said.

The Intel protest follows a series of sometimes violent demonstrations by ultra-Orthodox people against the opening of a Jerusalem car park on the Jewish Shabbat, which runs from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset.

They are concerned that the moves contribute to the secularization of the Jerusalem, a holy city where the Orthodox Jewish community makes up about one-third of the 750,000 population.

Tensions have been running high since secular Mayor Nir Barkat took control of the city last year from his ultra-Orthodox predecessor.