A four-year-old Israeli boy was killed by a mortar shell fired from the Gaza Strip on Friday afternoon. The boy, named late Friday as Daniel Tregerman, was at home with his parents and siblings at their kibbutz in the Sha’ar Hanegev Region, close to the border with Gaza, when the attack took place.
An Israeli security source said the fatal shell was fired from a UNRWA school in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza, the Ynet news site reported late Friday.
Sirens wailed only very shortly before the mortar shell struck outside the Tregerman family home at the kibbutz, and his parents — Doron and Gila — were unable to get their son Daniel into their protected room in time. He was killed by shrapnel from the explosion that smashed into the house.
Daniel is the first Israeli child to die in the current Israel-Hamas conflict. His death brought the Israeli death toll since Operation Protective Edge began on July 8 to 68.
He was critically wounded, and later died of his wounds.
Several cars and buildings sustained damage from the fire following the explosion of the mortar shell.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas would pay a “heavy price” for the killing. In a phone call to local Sha’ar Hanegev council head Alon Shuster, Netanyahu said the IDF and Shin Bet would intensify their operations against Hamas and other Gaza terror groups until sustained calm was guaranteed for Israel.
Shuster said the family had only recently returned to their home, having stayed elsewhere during part of the war.
US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro condemned the attack. “I condemn in the strongest terms this outrageous terrorist attack and offer condolences to the boy’s family. Israel has the right and obligation to defend itself, which the United States supports,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
Tregerman was the first Israeli fatality since Hamas breached a truce on Tuesday and resumed rocket fire at Israel, prompting a re-escalation of fighting and the collapse of ceasefire talks in Cairo.
One person was in critical condition, and two others were lightly injured, in a separate rocket attack in the Ashdod area later Friday.
By Friday evening, Gaza-based terror groups had fired over 110 rockets and mortar shells into Israel since the morning. Sirens sounded across southern and central Israel as a barrage of rockets was launched in the late afternoon hours.
Earlier Friday, a rocket slammed into an empty house in Sderot, causing significant damage.
Also on Friday afternoon, a synagogue in Ashdod suffered a direct hit by a Gaza rocket. The building was badly damaged and three people were injured in that attack, one moderately.
Hamas has fired over 3,500 rockets at Israel in the past 46 days, including some 600 from close to schools, mosques and other civilian facilities, the Israeli army says. Some 2,000 people have been killed in Gaza as Israel seeks to thwart the rocket attacks and smash a network of attack tunnels dug by Hamas under the border. Israel says 750-1,000 of the dead are Hamas and other gunmen. It also blames Hamas for all civilian fatalities, since Hamas set up its rocket-launchers, tunnel openings and other elements of its war machine in Gaza neighborhoods and uses Gazans as “human shields.”
WarSclerotic 
August 22, 2014 at 11:25 PM
8:43 p.m. Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman told Israeli television on Friday that military operations in Gaza must continue “until Hamas waves the white flag.”
In an interview with Channel 2 that aired just a few hours after it was learned that a four-year-old boy succumbed to his wounds which he sustained as a result of a mortar strike on a kibbutz near the Gaza frontier, Liberman said that the government needs to spell out “a strategic goal” that encompasses “defeating Hamas, bringing it to submission.”
“That means Hamas waves the white flag,” the foreign minister said. “That is a realistic scenaio, and it must be a goal.”
WORKS FOR ME!
August 23, 2014 at 2:19 AM
Look at the size of Gaza and Netantahu is afraid to subdue it.
PATHETIC!!!!!
http://www.businessinsider.com/these-maps-show-what-the-gaza-invasion-would-look-like-in-major-us-cities-2014-7
August 23, 2014 at 2:51 AM
Abbas and Mashaal Call on UN to ‘End the Occupation’
These nut jobs must be crushed!!!!
August 23, 2014 at 3:10 AM
So sad. This beautiful child looks so much like my grandson with the legos stacked high. My deepest condolences to his family.
August 24, 2014 at 10:45 AM
Imagine – little Daniel would have been Bibis son – I bet that within one week all of Hamas leaders would be dead, most of their men too and Gaza would be again in Israeli hands. Unfortunately Daniel didnt live with his parents in a bomb – proof house in Jerusalem or a bomb – proof Villa in Caesarea. Its a shame – Bibi should protect ALL of Israel ! Also Bibi almost let Shalit rot in the Hands of the Hamas barbarians ! When the present war is over Bibi should resign and let someone do his job who has the guts to do what has to be done to protect ALL of Israel – not only the fancy people in Tel Aviv in their expensive Villas and with their expensive cars. Israel deserves a much stronger and brave leader than Bibi……which I’m sorry to say because basically I like him…..Am Israel Chai !