[1][2] 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As of 2007, the Givati brigade is organized into three main battalions: Shaked, Tzabar, and Rotem, in addition to associated reconnaissance, engineering, and other units.

It also participated in the ground phase of Operation Cast Lead, when of all IDF brigades, it penetrated deepest into Gaza City.

The brigade's reconnaissance battalion entered the Tel el-Hawa neighborhood in search of Hamas operatives two days before the cease fire went into effect.

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.

[14][15] 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.

[16][17] 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.

[17][21][18] The IDF Rabbinate later declared Goldin deceased for the purposes of Jewish burial and grieving rituals and buried the remains.

In November 2022, the Givati Brigade was involved in "a series of incidents" of alleged abuses towards civilians in Jerusalem and the West Bank.