Yusef Zalat, teacher
Around 3:45 this morning [1 May], I was awakened by calls being made through a loudspeaker outside. I realized they were coming from Israelis soldiers. At 4:00, my three daughters - Ahlam, Ansam, and Angham - woke up and told me there were soldiers in the 'Othmans' house. We all went to the living room and waited there. We were tense and worried that the soldiers would enter the houses. We did not know who the soldiers wanted to come outside, because there are other houses on the street. We prayed at 4:45. Around 5:05, I heard knocking on the door, and one of my daughters went to open the door. At the door were our neighbors, 'Abd a-Rahman al-Masri and his wife, Rauda Fahmawi, who rent the apartment next to ours. We also rent. At 5:10, I turned off the alarm clock on the cell phone, which had begun to ring.
Two minutes after that, my daughter Ahlam turned off the beep on her cell phone. As she did, gunfire broke out from all directions. Ahlam screamed that she had been hit in the hand and thigh. I tried to help her stop the bleeding. Then my other daughters cried out, "Father'… Mother was hit in the head." My wife died a few seconds later. A few moments after that my daughter Ansam was hit by fragments of one of the shots at our house.
Around 5:15, I went outside to summon an ambulance to take my wounded daughters. I was sure that my wife was dead. The moment that I went through the main gate, I saw soldiers standing on the road, opposite our home. A soldier called to me to go over to him. I shouted to him that my wife had been killed and my daughters were injured, and that I wanted to call an ambulance to take them to the hospital. The soldier insisted that I go over to him. When I got there, he ordered me to stand with my face to the wall. He asked me what my name was. I gave him my full name and told him I was a teacher and that only my wife and daughters were in the house. Later, the soldier let me take my daughters to the ambulance. After my daughters were evacuated, he asked me about the other occupants in our building. I told him that my family and another family, of the Masri hamula [extended family], lived in the building and that a guy whom I didn't know lived on the ground floor. The soldier told me that the guy on the first floor was a terrorist. I didn't know that because I am only renting.
I should add that while we were sitting in the house, I didn't hear any shots from the direction of our house. We only heard shots from the houses next to ours.
Yusef Mahmoud Ahmad Zalat, 49, with five children, teacher, resident of Tulkarm. His testimony was given to 'Abd al-Karim a-Sadi at the witness's home on 1 May 2006.