Sunday Times 2
Gaza police seize Banksy painting in legal row
View(s):GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinian police confiscated from a Gaza graffiti artist on Thursday a bombed-out doorway bearing a Banksy painting after the original owner complained of being swindled into selling it cheap.
The artist Belal Khaled had paid 700 shekels ($175) for the image of a goddess holding her head in her hand, which had been spray-painted on Rabea Darduna’s iron-and-brick doorway as it stood among the ruins of his home, destroyed in the July-August war with Israel.
Banksy, a British street artist famed for his ironic murals in unexpected places, visited Gaza this year and left several paintings on the outside walls of buildings, some of them ruins. His pieces regularly sell for more than $500,000.
Khaled, 23, told Reuters that police seized the painting from his home in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. They were accompanied by Darduna, a civil servant.
“The policemen took the door away and they told me it would be held in accordance with a court order because there was a lawsuit against me,” Khaled said. “I am the true owner of the door now, and I will seek to establish this in court.”