The brigade was formed on February 22, 1948 during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, when the Levanoni Brigade in the Galilee split into the 1st Golani Brigade and the 2nd Carmeli Brigade. It has since participated in all of Israel's major wars and nearly all major operations, including the Suez Crisis, the Six-Day War, the War of Attrition, the Yom Kippur War, Operation Entebbe, the 1978 South Lebanon conflict, the 1982 and 2006 Lebanon Wars, and various operations during the Palestinian intifadas.