Slain toddler’s mom: We were the happiest family in the world

Gila Tragerman, mother of Daniel Tragerman, the 4-year-old child killed Friday whose funeral is currently underway, says at the funeral that “we were the happiest family in the world, and I just cannot come to grips with it. Daniel,” she says, “we want to thank you; you taught us how to love and you gave us so much joy. I find solace in the fact that you were a loved and happy child until your last minute.”

“We wanted to protect you but even the code red siren failed to save you,” she says. “You would always run first and call your little brother (to the shelter) and then in a second it ended. We don’t want to say goodbye. You are the love of my life, the perfect child, every parent’s dream: smart, sensitive, ahead of his age group and beautiful, so beautiful,” she adds.

Gila says, “We always said you’d be the youngest leader in the world, who would bring piece.” That didn’t happen in your lifetime, she says, so perhaps it will happen after you.

President Reuven Rivlin also speaks at the funeral, calling Daniel’s death, “the moment we so feared.”

The Tragerman family had previously left Nahal Oz in order to find safety during the Israeli-Hamas hostilities, but returned just days before their child was killed, during a ceasefire, on the safety assurances of IDF officials.

An IDF investigation showed that the mortar that killed Tragerman was fired from next to a Hamas-run shelter in Gaza.