Givati was formed in December 1947 and placed under the command of
Shimon Avidan. At the start of the
1948 Palestine war, the brigade was charged with operations in the central region of Israel, participating in operations
Hametz,
Barak and
Pleshet. During Operation Barak, the brigade perpetrated a massacre in the village of
Abu Shusha, killing around 60 residents. As the war entered its
second stage, Givati became the
5th Brigade, was moved to the south, and concentrated mainly around
Gedera,
Gan Yavne and
Be'er Tuvia. One battalion fought on the Jerusalem front, participating in
Operation Nachshon and the
Battles of Latrun. When Israel
declared independence, Givati consisted of 5 battalions, with notable commanders such as
Jehuda Wallach (51st Battalion),
Ya'akov Pri (52nd Battalion),
Yitzhak Pundak (53rd Battalion),
Tzvi Tzur (54th Battalion) and
Eitan Livni (55th Battalion). A sixth battalion (the 57th) was founded on May 30, 1948 from
Irgun veterans, in preparation for
Operation Pleshet. The brigade or parts thereof subsequently participated in the
Battle of Nitzanim,
Operation An-Far,
Operation Yoav, etc. It was converted into a reserve brigade in 1956 and its 51st "HaBokim HaRishonim" infantry battalion transferred to the
Golani Brigade.
1980s Givati was reestablished as a mechanized infantry brigade and then proceeded on to amphibious warfare in 1983. At the time it was intended that the Brigade serve as
marines, but this has not been effected. In 1986 the brigade's purple beret was officially approved. Since 1999 it serves under Israel's
Southern Command.
2002–2003 The Givati Brigade served under the Southern Command and was deployed in the Gaza Strip. The brigade was awarded a medal of honor for its service in the Gaza Strip during the last two years of the
Al-Aqsa Intifada, when under the command of
Imad Fares. Under Fares' command, Givati carried out thousands of operations in the Gaza Strip.
2004 The brigade continued its operations in the Gaza Strip under the command of
Eyal Eisenberg and the new head of Southern Command,
Dan Harel. Givati's Recon Battalion, the
Dolev combat engineering platoon and the
Bedouin scouts battalion, won a
recommendation of honor, mainly for their activities against
Rafah's tunnels. Givati forces, combined with a special combat engineering tunnels unit, and
IDF Caterpillar D9 armoured bulldozers, managed to suppress most of Rafah's tunnels. On May 11 and May 12, 2004, two
armored personnel carriers of Givati's
Dolev engineering battalion were destroyed by Palestinian militants. The two separate skirmishes, in
Gaza City's Zeitoun neighbourhood and the
Philadelphi Route near
Rafah and the
Egyptian border, claimed the lives of 11 soldiers.
Islamic Jihad militants captured some of the remains, causing outrage in Israel. Following international pressure and further Israeli operations in Zeitoun, the bodies of soldiers were returned to Israel. In the Zeitoun incident,
UNRWA ambulances were used as transport by healthy Palestinian militants. 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 bring some of the remains of IDF soldiers killed in Zaitoun neighbourhood in Gaza on May 11, 2004. UNRWA has described the May 11 incident as a hijacking. , 2010 After two more soldiers were killed in
Rafah,
Israel launched
Operation Rainbow. This involved Givati forces reinforced by
Golani Brigade soldiers with
IDF Achzarit HAPCs, a battalion of officers from the class-commanders school and several
IDF Caterpillar D9 armoured bulldozers. The stated aim of Operation Rainbow 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 the southern Gaza Strip. Two of the battalion's four company commanders were removed, although one was later exonerated. Captain "R", a
Druze officer was tried for killing
Iman al-Hams, a 13-year-old Palestinian girl, in Rafah in October 2004. Captain "R" was acquitted of all charges by a military court. Another officer, Captain "N", was removed after Palestinian gunmen infiltrated the
Morag settlement and killed three soldiers in September 2004.
2005 On September 12, the Givati Brigade left the Gaza Strip as part of
Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, one month after the forceful removal of approximately 8,000 Jewish settlers living in 22 communities in the Strip. It marked an end to the 38 year IDF presence in the Gaza Strip. Today, two battalions are stationed outside the Strip, while the third battalion is positioned on the northern border.
2006 On June 27, in response to Hamas' kidnapping of Corporal
Gilad Shalit, the IDF started an offensive in the Gaza Strip to repel the continuous rockets being fired into the Israeli town outside of Gaza and to pressure Hamas to release Shalit. Givati, together with the Golani Brigade, Engineering Corps and the Armored Corps, participated in Operation "Summer Rains." However, Israel failed to achieve the release of Shalit, and a November 26 ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Palestinian groups forced Israel to withdraw its forces. Captain "R", the former Misayat Shaked company commander who was accused in "confirming kill" of 13-year-old Iman al-Hams in Rafah in October 2004, and was acquitted in court, received NIS 80,000 in compensation from the state, according to a December 14 Ha'aretz report.
2012 In November 2012, the Givati Brigade participated in
Operation Pillar of Defense.
2014 In the summer of 2014, the Givati Brigade participated in the Israeli offensive
Operation Protective Edge. During a 72-hour ceasefire, elements of the brigade's reconnaissance company engaged in a brief skirmish with Hamas militants in the southern Gazan city of
Rafah, near the border with Egypt. Three soldiers, including the commander, Benaya Sarel, of the Givati Reconnaissance Company (
Sayeret Givati), were killed in the ensuing firefight subsequently dubbed
"Black Friday." Lieutenant Hadar Goldin was captured by Hamas militants and taken into a tunnel, and the assistant company commander took a small group of soldiers with him into the tunnel in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to rescue Goldin. After learning of Goldin's capture, the IDF initiated the
Hannibal Directive and carried out a relentless air and ground attack on residential areas of
Rafah. In the summer of 2015, a
United Nations independent commission inquiry, as well as a joint report by
Amnesty International and
Forensic Architecture, found that Israel's indiscriminate violence against all human life on Black Friday amounted to war crimes. The reports detail the massive Israeli bombardment that killed between 135 and 200 Palestinian civilians, including 75 children. The assistant company commander was later awarded Israel's highest military honor, and the soldiers that accompanied him into the tunnel were also awarded military commendations. The Givati Brigade was the most highly decorated brigade in the IDF in 2014.
2015 In January 2015, a convoy belonging to the Tsabar Battalion of the Givati Brigade
was attacked by
Hezbollah in
Shebaa Farms.
2022 In November 2022, the Givati Brigade was involved in "a series of incidents" of alleged abuses towards civilians in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Within the space of a few weeks, Givati Brigade soldiers were accused of spitting at an Armenian Christian archbishop leading a pilgrimage (two soldiers were detained by police), beating Israeli human rights activists in Hebron (two soldiers were suspended), and assaulting a Palestinian man (three soldiers were suspended). While IDF Chief of Staff
Aviv Kohavi contended that "Incidents such as these tarnish the unit in which the soldier serves, the IDF and the State of Israel," Israeli MK and national security minister-designate
Itamar Ben-Gvir urged the IDF to "think twice" about whether to punish the soldiers, questioning whether they had been "provoked" and contending that disciplining them "weakens the hands of the soldiers and does not strengthen them in the fight against terrorism". in May 2024
2023 The Givati Brigade has lost 89 soldiers and commanders during the war, including on the October 7, 2023, onslaught. ==See also==