Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni, was born in Israel in 1959. He is married and he has four children.
Gadi Shamni was known as "the child hunter" (Sayad al Atfal) among the people of Hebron because of the many children murdered by troops under his command.
He was drafted into the IDF Paratroopers Brigade in 1977. He served as a company commander, reconnaissance company commander, battalion commander, commander of a paratroopers brigade in the reserve, and as a commander of the paratroopers brigade.
In 2003 Gadi was appointed as commander of the Gaza division. He was responsible for the collective punishment of the population of Gaza, for the criminal destruction in the Rafah and Al-Buraig (Bureish) refugee camps, and demolishing Palestinian houses in the city. In one incident during their campaign of ethnical cleansing and demolishing Palestinians houses, Gadi’s troops demolished seven houses of poor people who were not involved in any militant clashes in Rafah. Among the ruins, his criminal troops killed a pregnant woman, Noha Makadama, a mother of ten children. Noha was killed in front of her husband and her children.
On May 1, 1997 and under Gadi's command, the soldier Noam Friedman shot and injured 9 persons in the vegetable market of Hebron in a typical crime incited by racist hatred. Nothing happened to Friedman, who was preventively declared insane before his trial, a pronouncement which was turned over as soon as the trial ended in his acquittal due to opportune insanity.
Some children murdered by troops under Shamni's command are (September 2003): Sanaa Jamil Al-Daour, age 9, Gaza Strip, killed 2/9/2003 Mohammad Issa Hamdan, age 16, Yebna camp in Rafah, killed 4/9/2003 Wa'el Isa, age 3, Bureij camp in Gaza, killed 25/9/2003
