Israel on Tuesday handed back 22 ancient artefacts to Greece in what officials on both sides described as the first return of antiquities from Israel to Greece. Culture Minister Lina Mendoni received the objects from the Israel Antiquities Authority's theft-prevention chief Amir Ganor and Israel's ambassador to Greece, Pninat Yanai, at a ceremony in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. The cache includes fifteen Attic vases, six Corinthian vases and a small bronze statuette of a woman, provisionally dated between about 700 and 320 BC. The vessels carry mythological scenes and geometric decoration in black-figure and red-figure techniques. The objects were seized in 2020 during an investigation into illegal antiquities trafficking in and around Tel Aviv, in which raids on a gallery, warehouses and apartments uncovered thousands of archaeological objects. Officials did not disclose how the artefacts reached Israel or the circumstances of their illegal removal from Greece. Mendoni framed the handover as the starting point for closer cooperation on cultural-heritage protection, adding that every return carries a broader symbolic and moral weight. Ambassador Yanai said the restitution created the conditions for further strengthening cooperation between the two countries. The transfer lands amid deepening ties between the two countries, including a three-billion-euro air-defence deal signed in August. Athens is also pressing a wider repatriation campaign whose ultimate prize remains the Parthenon Marbles held by the British Museum in London. The cache comprised fifteen Attic vessels, eleven in black-figure, three in red-figure and one black-glazed, plus six Corinthian vases and the bronze figure, all recovered through a 2020 anti-trafficking investigation in the Tel Aviv area.