Israeli Security Forces - IDF- Givati Brigade
The Givati Brigade (חטיבת
גבעתי) is one of the Israeli Defense Forces' infantry brigades. It was
formed in December 1948 and placed under the command of Shimon Avidan.
Before that it participated in Operation Yoav (15 - 22 October, 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
it was reestablished at 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, a hint for
Shualey Shimshon (שועלי שמשון "Samson's Foxes"), a unit in the 1948
Arab-Israeli War.
As of 2004, the Givati brigade is organized in three main battalions:
Shaked, Tzabar, and Rotem, in addition to associated reconnaissance,
engineering, and other units.
List of Israeli military operations during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war
that the Givati Brigade participated in
* Operation Yoav
Current Status
2002-2003
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
Dolev combat 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 D9 armoured bulldozers,
managed to suppress most of Rafah's tunnels, as well as destroying the
homes of hundreds of civillians.
On May 11 and May 12, two armored personnal carriers of Givati's Dolev
engineering battalion, were destroyed by Palestinian miltants. 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. [1] That
caused an outrage in Israel, eventually leading to a massive operation
in Zeitoun's neigbourhood and Rafah. [2],[3] 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. This involved which Givati forces reinforced by Golani Brigade
soldiers with IDF Achzarit HAPCs, a battlion of officers from the
class-commanders school and serveral armoured Caterpillar D9 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 southern Gaza. Two of the battalion's four
company commanders have been removed. One, a Captain "R," is a Druze
officer under investigation for "confirming the kill" (i.e. shooting an
incapacitated person at close range) of Iman al-Hams, a 13-year-old
Palestinian girl, in Rafah in October 2004. Another, Captain "N," was
removed after Palestinian gunmen infiltrated Morag settlement and killed
three soldiers in September 2004.
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Givati_Brigade
Back to Israeli Security Forces
|
|
