Israeli aircraft on Sunday sprayed herbicides along border with the Gaza Strip, according to a Palestinian official.

“These chemicals cause damage to agricultural crops and harm farmlands,” Nizar al-Wahedi of the Palestinian Agriculture Ministry told Anadolu Agency.

He said the Palestinian ministry was not aware of the composition of the Israeli chemicals being sprayed on Palestinian lands.

“Israel has no right to spray herbicides on Palestinian farmlands,” he said.

According to Israeli Gisha NGO, the Israeli spraying operations aim to get rid of unneeded grass along border with the Palestinian territory.

Some 44,000 Palestinians are working in agriculture, making up around 11 percent of the territory's work force.

Home to nearly two million Palestinians, the Gaza Strip has been reeling under a crippling Israeli blockade since 2007.

Gazan teachers, students protest US funding cuts Dozens of Gazan teachers and students from schools affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staged a protest on Thursday against recent reductions of U.S. financial aid to the organization. Participants at the demonstration, which was organized by several Palestinian political factions, held banners aloft, reading: "We are committed to the right of return" and "No to American arrogance”.Mahmoud Khalaf, a leading member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, told Anadolu Agency that Thursday’s protest was meant to “reiterate our rejection of this decision, which has deeply impacted UNRWA’s financial position”.“These aid cuts have adversely affected the living standards of all Palestinian refugees, especially in the education and health sectors,” Khalaf said.He went on to describe the aid reduction as “a political strategy aimed at terminating the right of Palestinian refugees to return [to historical Palestine]".The U.S. administration, he added, “wants to take the refugee issue off the negotiating table”.Established in 1949, UNRWA provides services to almost 6 million Palestinian refugees in the occupied Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.Last year, the U.S. contributed more than $350 million to the refugee agency.The funding cuts were announced in January, one month after U.S. President Donald Trump sparked outcry across the Middle East by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Injured Palestine teen recalls detention, interrogation Mohammad Fadel al-Tamimi, 15, cousin of Palestinian resistance icon Ahed al-Tamimi, was released this week after being detained by Israeli authorities despite having recently suffered a severe head injury.On Dec. 28, Mohammad was struck by a rubber-coated bullet that was fired by an Israeli soldier during clashes that erupted in his village -- Nabi Saleh -- near the West Bank city of Ramallah.“Three months ago, I was shot by an Israeli soldier while playing near my home,” he told Anadolu Agency in an exclusive interview.“The bullet went through my jaw and exited from my head,” Mohammad recalled.He was sent to a hospital near Ramallah for two weeks where he underwent extensive surgery, during which doctors had to remove much of his scalp.In the days ahead, he is slated to undergo a raft of additional surgical procedures.Yoav Mordechai, the official in charge of Israeli government activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, for his part, said the army wasn’t responsible for Mohammad's grave injury."The Tamimi child admitted that his injury was due to a bicycle fall," Mordechai wrote on his Facebook page."The culture of lies and incitement continues among the young and older people in the al-Tamimi family," he added. Mohammad’s father, Fadel al-Tamimi, 58, dismissed Mordechai’s claims, saying his son’s injury was undoubtedly caused by an Israeli soldier’s bullet."Medical reports and CT scans confirm -- beyond a shadow of a doubt -- that a bullet exited my son’s head, causing the injury," Fadel told Anadolu Agency."The claims of the Israeli coordinator [Mordechai] are lies; a cheap attempt to falsify facts," he said."The Israeli army arrested my injured son before subjecting him to violent interrogation," Fadel said. “Then they claimed he had said that his injury was the result of a bicycle fall.”"No one with a conscience could arrest a child suffering from a grave head injury,” he added. “The oppression and injustice we are suffering cannot be imagined."-DetentionAs for the boy’s arrest, which was met by outrage on the Palestinian street, Mohammad recalled how Israeli forces had raided his family’s home at dawn Monday and arrested him and his brother.“Along with nine others, we were taken to a military site near my village," he said. “From there we were taken to an ‘inspection center’ in the Benjamin settlement east of Ramallah.”"There I was subject to three hours of interrogation, during which I was beaten severely," he added.The boy recalled how one Israeli officer had falsely accused him of throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at Israeli army troops.Since he sustained his injury three months ago, Mohammad has been unable to live his life normally."It has kept me from playing with friends or continuing my education," he said. "I miss going to school and running through the fields with my friends."Last December, Israeli forces detained Ahed al-Tamimi -- Mohammad’s female cousin -- during an overnight raid in Nabi Saleh for allegedly attacking Israeli soldiers.In 2012, Istanbul’s Basaksehir Municipality granted Ahed the Hanzala Courage Award for defying Israeli soldiers who had just arrested her brother.According to Palestinian figures, over 6,400 Palestinians are now being held in Israeli prisons, including 350 children.