The Givati Brigade (Hebrew: חטיבת גבעתי) is one of the infantry brigades in the Israel Defense Forces. It was formed in December 1948 and placed under the command of Shimon Avidan. Before that it participated in Operation Yoav (October 15-22, 1948). Its role was to capture the areas of Hulikat, Kawkaba and the junction which is today known as the Givati Junction. Later it was disbanded but was reestablished in 1983 and still exists today. Since 1999 it serves under the Southern Command (Pikud Darom). Givati soldiers are designated by purple berets. The Brigade's symbol is the fox, alluding to Shualei Shimshon (שועלי שמשון, lit. Samson's Foxes), a unit in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
As of 2006, the Givati brigade is organized into three main battalions: Shaked, Tzabar, and Rotem, in addition to associated reconnaissance, engineering, and other units.
The Givati Brigade serves under the Southern Command and currently is deployed in the Gaza Strip. Recently, the Givati Brigade won a medal of honor for its service in the Gaza Strip during the last two years of the Al-Aqsa Intifada under the command of Aluf-Mishne Imad Fares. Under Fares command, the Givati Brigade attained a high reputation in Israel. It carried out thousands of Counter-insurgency operations in the Gaza Strip with great success and low casualties.
2004
The brigade continued its operations in the Gaza Strip, under the command of new Brigadier General Eyal Eizenberg and the new head of Southern Command Dan Harel. Givati's Recon Battalion, attached with Dolevcombat engineering platoon and the Beduin scouts battalion, won a recommendation of honor (TZALASH), mainly for their activities against Rafah's smuggling tunnels. Givati forces, combined with a special combat engineering tunnel's unit, and Caterpillar D9armoured bulldozers, managed to suppress most of Rafah's tunnels.
On May 11 and May 12, two armored personnal carriers of Givati's Dolev engineering battalion, were destroyed by Palestinian militants. The two separate attacks, in Gaza City's Zeitoun neigbourhood and the Philadelphi Route near Rafah and the Egyptian border, claimed the lives of 11 soldiers. Palestinian terrorists of Islamic Jihad, who captured parts of the remains mutilated the bodies and disgraced them. [link] That caused an outrage in Israel, eventually leading to a massive operation in Zeitoun's neigbourhood and Rafah. [link],[link] After international pressure and aggressive Israeli operation in Zeitoun, the bodies of soldier killed in Zeitoun were returned to Israel and were properly buried.
In the Zaitoun incident, UNRWA ambulances were used as transport by healthy Palestinian fighters. A [Reuters video shows the incident.]. In [an interview] with Haaretz, Israel's Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz also said that UNRWA's ambulances were used by Palestinian militants in order to smuggle some of the remains of IDF soldiers killed in Zaitoun neigbourhood in Gaza on May 11, 2004. UNRWA has described the May 11 incident as a hijacking.
After two more soldiers were killed in Rafah, Israel launched Operation Rainbow Cloud. This involved which Givati forces reinforced by Golani Brigade soldiers with IDF Achzarit HAPCs, a battlion of officers from the class-commanders school and several Caterpillar D9armoured bulldozers. The stated aim of Operation Rainbow Cloud was to destroy the terror infrastructure of Rafah, destroy smuggling tunnels and stop illegal missile shipment.
The brigade's Shaked battalion, under the command of a Lt. Col. "Ofer" (surname not publicized) was rocked by scandals in the second half of 2004 while stationed in southern Gaza.
Two of the battalion's four company commanders were removed, although one was later exonerated. Captain "R," a Druze officer was tried for ["confirming the kill"], or administering a coup de grace on Iman al-Hams, a 13-year-old Palestinian girl, in Rafah in October 2004. Testimony cleared him from all charges [link]. The accusing soldiers admitted that their motive was to remove an officer they considered to be an exceptionally harsh disciplinarian.
Another officer, Captain "N," was removed after Palestinian gunmen infiltrated Morag settlement and [killed three soldiers] in September 2004.
2005
On September 12, the Givati Brigade left Gaza, one month after the evacuation of approximately 8,000 Jewish settlers living in 22 communities in Gaza. It marked an end of the IDF presence in the Gaza Strip, after 38 years in the region. Today, two battalions are stationed outside the Strip, while the third battalion is positioned on the northern border.
