Ramallah - 11/07/2011: The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) condemns the attempted arson of Ma’an news agency headquarters in Gaza by unknown persons, in the early hours of 10 July 2011.

Ma’an’s Gaza correspondent, Ibrahim Mohammed Khalil, told MADA today that he had received a call yesterday morning from a colleague in the office next door informing him that there were burn marks on Ma’an’s main entrance door. When Khalil went to the office at approximately 7.30 am, he found a large portion of the door had been burned and saw a plastic bottle with burning material inside.

Khalil added: “The building’s security guard made the discovery at 5:00 am but didn’t want to disturb us so early. We were lucky there is no flammable material near the main door".

When asked of the possible reason for this attempted arson, Khalil said "the agency has not received any objections concerning any of the published articles and has not received threats in a long time, so we are very surprised. This was completely unexpected."

MADA calls upon the authorities in Gaza to open an investigation into the attack and ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice.