Stolen West Bank artifacts displayed at Israeli museum

<p>By Abdelraouf Arnaout</p> <p>JERUSALEM (AA) – Israel has exhibited artifacts stolen from the occupied West Bank at a Jerusalem museum, an Israeli newspaper reported Monday.</p> <p>Twenty artifacts — out of an estimated 40,000 confiscated in 1967 — are currently on display, Israeli daily Haaretz has reported.</p> <p>The purloined artifacts reportedly include a number of ancient coins and bowls.</p> <p>For the last four decades, the artifacts had remained in the Israeli authorities’ possession “with no means of ascertaining their provenance”, the paper reported.</p> <p>Palestine’s official WAFA news agency, for its part, condemned the looting of Palestinian antiquities.</p> <p>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”.</p>