Littlest Victim: Daniel Tregerman, 4, became the first Israeli child killed in the Gaza war when a rocket struck his kibbutz. Image by Haaretz

Hundreds of people attended the funeral of four–year-old Daniel Tregerman, who was killed by shrapnel from a mortar outside his home near the border with Gaza.

“We were the happiest family in the world, and I just cannot come to grips with it,” Daniel’s mother, Gila Tregerman, said between sobs at Sunday morning’s funeral.

“We wanted to protect you but even the Code Red siren failed to save you. You would always run first and call your little brother (to the shelter) and then in a second it ended,” she said.

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Israeli President Reuven Rivlin attended the funeral.

“He was too young to cross the street by himself because it was dangerous, but old enough to know the Code Red siren means because that too is dangerous,” Rivlin told funeral-goers. “You are everyone’s child. We are burying a child for whose sake we were fighting.”

The Tregerman family reportedly had left their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz during the first three weeks of Israel’s operation in Gaza, but returned last week after security officials told residents it would be safe. But rockets began hitting the area again when the cease-fire was broken on Aug. 19.

The family had planned to leave the kibbutz later on Friday, the day Daniel was killed.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement Sunday that the mortar that killed Daniel was fired from a launching site located adjacent to the Jafar Ali Ibn Taleb School in the neighborhood of Gaza City, which currently is serving as a shelter for displaced Palestinians.

Meanwhile, the Times of Israel reported that most of the families living in Nahal Oz had left by Saturday, and that most of those remaining were kibbutz employees. A mortar shell scored a direct hit on the kibbutz dining hall on Saturday morning.

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said on Saturday in a visit to southern Israel that the IDF would provide assistance to civilians leaving the area. He had been scheduled to visit Nahal Oz, but his visit was cancelled by his security advisors due to the large number of rockets and mortars that struck the kibbutz over the weekend.

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