page_title: Givati Brigade
section_title: 2004
hierarchical_section_title: Givati Brigade / History / 2004
caption_attribution_description: English: Members of the Israel Defense Forces' Givati Brigade pray the Evening Service (Ma'ariv) at the Western Wall, October 2010.
context_page_description: The 84th "Givati" Brigade is an Israel Defense Forces infantry brigade. The Brigade is stationed within the Gaza Strip and primarily performs counter-terrorism operations. Givati soldiers are designated by purple berets. The Brigade's symbol is the fox, alluding to Shualei Shimshon, a unit in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
context_section_description: 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 smuggling 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 attacks, 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 fighters. 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 neighbourhood 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 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.
caption: Members of the Givati Brigade praying at the Western Wall, 2010
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot SX120 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2010:10:06 18:04:09", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "240", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5205", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/8", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "250", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:10:06 18:04:09", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:10:06 18:04:09", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "3", "EXIF ApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, auto mode, red-eye reduction mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "6", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3648", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2736", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "3648", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2736", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3264", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "1824000/113", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "273600/17", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Night"}