Four-year-old Daniel Tragerman, the victim of a mortar fire attack on Friday on Kibbutz Nahal Oz, was laid to rest Sunday morning.

Daniel’s mother Gila, speaking at the Hevel Shalom cemetery in the Eshkol Region, eulogized her son.

“I do not understand what’s going on at all, sweetie,” Gila said. “I cannot believe I’m here to say goodbye.”

“We were the happiest family in the world and I do not accept this. My Daniel, we want to thank you for teaching us to love, to smile, and for giving us many moments of joy in such a short time. You’re smart, sensitive, beautiful,” Gila added.

“I find comfort in that you were a child who was loved, and who was happy, until his last moments,” she continued. “We wanted to protect you, but even the code red siren did not protect us.”

Daniel was killed from flying shrapnel from a rocket that exploded near his home. The Red Alert siren gave the family a mere three seconds to make it to safety. Daniel did not make it in time.

Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency services, were called to the scene. Paramedics attempted to resuscitate Daniel at the scene but were unsuccessful and pronounced the four-year-old dead.

Gila explained that the family was preparing to leave their home on Friday for a safer area.

“The suitcases were already packed,” she recalled. “A minute before the explosion I went out to take Uri’s baby carrier (her younger son) from the clothesline and met the neighbor. I asked him if they were leaving and told him we were setting off now. I went inside and there was the Color Red siren.”

“The children were playing in a tent inside the house, and from the moment of the siren to the explosion only three seconds passed. We didn’t have time to get the children and go into the protected room.”

Gila explained that her son was extremely disciplined when it came to the rocket sirens.

“He always rushed to the protected room. The moment the alarm sounded he knew what to do and where to go,” she said. “We everyone reached the protected room Daniel would say ‘now we’re all safe.’”

Gila beseeched to God to give her and her family the strength to live on. “God in heaven, strengthen us, give us the strength to continue,” she called out. “We left you your Spiderman costume you loved so much…we don’t want to say goodbye.”