23-Aug-14: Firing from right next to an UNRWA facility in Gaza, the terrorists achieve a strategic hit

Daniel, 4

Far from the scene, the indiscriminate fire of the Hamas terror forces into Israel and at anything Israeli has an almost-boring sameness about it. Thousands of firings (more than 3,500 in the past 46 days), place names that are vague and usually unrecognizable to non-Israelis, and outcomes that are usually stated as "no injuries, no damage, but that is not what the terrorists intended'.

Here is what the terrorists of Hamas did intend: the violent death of a four year-old Israeli child in his home on a kibbutz in southern Israel. Not occupied, not territories, not an act of liberation. Just a killing, a dead "Zionist", and - finally - a little child.

A four-year-old Israeli boy was killed by a mortar shell fired from the Gaza Strip on Friday afternoon. The boy, Daniel Tragerman, was at home with his parents and siblings at Kibbutz Nahal Oz 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 near an UNRWA shelter in Gaza... Sirens wailed only very shortly before the mortar shell struck outside the Tragerman 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... The family had only recently returned to their home, having stayed elsewhere during part of the war... [The child] 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. [Times of Israel]

And please: no sanctimonious claims of "he was unfortunately caught in the crossfire". Like innocent victims of all terrorist attacks, 4 year-old Daniel was the target. His being a Jewish child simply completes the Hamas wish-list (see "15-Aug-14: Terror and children").