• The painting shows a rat with a slingshot and was sprayed on a wall in the occupied West Bank.
• It was one of several Banksy works made in secret around 2007.
• Israeli art dealer Koby Abergel says gallery is simply displaying the work, leaving interpretation to others.

A long-lost painting by the British graffiti artist Banksy has been found in a fancy art gallery in downtown Tel Aviv. It was first spray-painted on a concrete wall in the occupied West Bank, which is an hour’s drive and a world away.

The moving of the painting, which shows a rat with a slingshot and was probably meant to protest Israel’s occupation, raises ethical questions about taking art from occupied territory and showing it in a place that is very different from where it was made.

The painting first showed up near Israel’s separation wall in Bethlehem, which is in the occupied West Bank. It was one of several works made in secret around 2007. They used Banksy’s trademark absurdist and dystopian art to protest the fact that Israel has been occupying land that Palestinians want for a future state for decades.

Now, it lives at the Urban Gallery in Tel Aviv’s financial district, surrounded by glass and steel skyscrapers.

“This is the story of David and Goliath,” said Koby Abergel, an Israeli art dealer who purchased the painting, without elaborating on the analogy. He said the gallery was simply displaying the work, leaving its interpretation to others.

The Associated Press could not independently confirm that the piece was real, but Abergel said that the cracks and scrapes in the concrete serve as “a fingerprint” that shows it is the same piece that is on the artist’s website.

It’s not clear how it got from the West Bank to Tel Aviv, which is 43 miles away. The 900-pound piece of concrete would have had to go through Israel’s winding barrier and at least one military checkpoint, both of which are part of daily life for Palestinians and are the targets of Banksy’s biting satire.

Abergel, who is a partner in the Tel Aviv gallery, said that he bought the piece of concrete in Bethlehem from a Palestinian friend. He wouldn’t say how much he paid or who the seller was, but he insisted that the deal was legal.

Graffiti was spray-painted on a concrete block that used to be part of an abandoned Israeli army position in Bethlehem. The block was next to a tall section of the separation barrier made of concrete.

Sometime later, the painting was vandalized by someone who obscured it and scrawled “RIP Bansky Rat” on the block. According to Abergel, Palestinian residents removed the painting and kept it in private residences until earlier this year.

He stated that the relocation required delicate negotiations with his Palestinian associate as well as meticulous restoration to remove the acrylic paint sprayed over Banksy’s work. The massive block was then enclosed in a steel frame and lifted onto a flatbed truck, which was then rolled through a checkpoint until it arrived in Tel Aviv in the middle of the night.

It was impossible to confirm his account of its journey independently.

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