Family of slain toddler won’t return to Nahal Oz

Gila Tragerman, the mother of the slain four-year-old Daniel Tragerman, says her family does not intend to return to their hometown of Nahal Oz on the Gaza border.

After the funeral yesterday, Tragerman tells Army Radio today, “it seems we will not return to Nahal Oz — there is no way.”

“Now it’s very clear, there are no more question marks and I don’t think there will be,” she says. “It’s not the quiet — it’s the memories,” she says of her decision.

Gila Tragerman describes her son as “a sweet boy” and says “the pictures that were publicized of him reflect who he really was.”

She says that during Operation Protective Edge, the family struggled to maintain a sense of normalcy. “Throughout the campaign we didn’t tell them we were leaving because of the operation, we only told them that there were Code Red [sirens] and that it was a little dangerous,” she says of her kids. “After about a month we told them the situation and they understood it.”

Tragerman describes the scene on Friday, when Daniel was killed by shrapnel in their Nahal Oz home. The family only had a three-second warning, she says, and did not reach the shelter in time.

“He left the tent right away, called his sister, and when I called him he stood there with a frozen look. I turned toward the shelter, and then I heard the shriek of the shrapnel and my husband’s scream. It’s just crazy, I have no words. I don’t think about ‘what would have happened if,’ I don’t want to go crazy [thinking about it],” she says.