Stolen West Bank artifacts displayed at Israeli museum

By Abdelraouf Arnaout

JERUSALEM

Israel has exhibited artifacts stolen from the occupied West Bank at a Jerusalem museum, an Israeli newspaper reported Monday.

Twenty artifacts -- out of an estimated 40,000 confiscated in 1967 -- are currently on display, Israeli daily Haaretz has reported.

The purloined artifacts reportedly include a number of ancient coins and bowls.

For the last four decades, the artifacts had remained in the Israeli authorities’ possession “with no means of ascertaining their provenance”, the paper reported.

Palestine’s official WAFA news agency, for its part, condemned the looting of Palestinian antiquities.

The display of stolen artifacts, the news agency asserted on Monday, “violates international law… which prohibits an occupying power from… carrying out archaeological excavations in occupied territory”.