RAMALLAH, West Bank ? Militants raided a Palestinian police station and a local government office on Saturday, as unrest in the Gaza Strip stretched into a second week despite efforts by Yasser Arafat to defuse mounting discontent with his leadership.

Arafat, in his first public appearance since the outbreak of demonstrations against his regime, denied he is facing a crisis and renewed his pledge to give more authority to his prime minister.

But the continuing violence in Gaza signaled skepticism over Arafat’s promises of reform, and there was no indication that his standoff with Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and the Palestinian Cabinet was easing.

“No, no, there is no crisis,” said Arafat, facing a bank of microphones after meeting Arab diplomats in his headquarters.

“There is no problem over the interior minister. There is a proposal by the Palestinian Legislative Council to carry out some changes within the Cabinet, and we gave our approval for such changes,” the Palestinian leader said.

In the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun Israeli troops shot dead a 16-year-old Palestinian standing at the window of his home, paramedics said. The army said it was checking the report. The military said Palestinian gunmen were shooting, but that troops did not return fire because darkness made it difficult to identify the target.

Also, Israel’s public security minister warned that Jewish extremists could attack a site holy to Muslims and Jews, hoping to provoke violence and wreck Israeli plans to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.

“We feel that the level of the threat to the Temple Mount, in the sense of an attack by extremist Jewish fanatics in order to reshuffle the cards, to be a catalyst for change to the whole political process, has risen in recent months, or weeks, higher than it has ever been,” Tzachi Hanegbi told Israel’s Channel Two television.

In this photo released by the Palestinian Authority, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, holding a young boy on his shoulder, flashes the V-sign to followers gathered to show their support outside his compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah. In his first public comments Saturday since the upheavals in the Gaza Strip spilled over into a political confrontation with Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia last week, Arafat denied the government was in a crisis and expressed confidence in his prime minister.

The Al-Aqsa compound stands on what Jews know as Temple Mount, the site of the biblical Temple and Judaism’s most sacred shrine. Some Jews believe that destroying the mosques and rebuilding the ruined Temple will bring about the coming of the Messiah.

Arafat pledged to empower the Cabinet last week after the Palestinian parliament, in a rare show of defiance, asked him to appoint a new Cabinet with authority to deal with the demonstrations and kidnappings that spread from Gaza to the West Bank.

Arafat has refused to accept the resignation of Qureia, who complained that he lacked the tools to deal with the unrest or the corruption that is rife in the Palestinian Authority.

Arafat made light of the standoff with Qureia.

“The prime minister has the full right to propose anything he wants, and whatever is suitable for him,” Arafat said. “I will support whatever he decides. I highly and fully trust him.”