Ziva David is a former Mossad officer. She came to NCIS in the third season (Kill Ari: Part 1 ; Kill Ari: Part 2) to stop Gibbs from killing Ari Haswari. ( I'd wish you luck, but I want that bastard dead, too -DiNozzo) So far, it's been confirmed she speaks at least 9 different languages; English, Arabic, Turkish, Spanish, Italian, Russian, French, Hebrew and German.Ari was her half-brother. They had a younger sister who was killed by an Hamas bomber. At the time she is first introduced to NCIS, her father is the Assistant Director of Mossad. By the Season 4 opener, Shalom, he has been promoted to the Director of Mossad.A native of Israel, Ziva is perhaps best known for having a general lack of understanding for American culture. She frequently messes up common American phrases and mispronounces slang. She sleeps with a gun under her pillow, and in the episode Under Covers we learn that she snores quite loudly. She is Jewish, and her faith appears to be quite important to her, as she is always wearing a Star of David and has said before she would rather die than remove it. She became the full-time Mossad liaison officer to NCIS in the season three episode Silver War. Her past as a spy is helpful, but her experience as an assassin causes issues. Ziva is the main suspect of murder when a prisoner dies in her custody in an elevator (Jeopardy). She must learn how to be an investigator and how to interrogate...without maiming (or killing). Still, her dual loyalty causes problems.As season six comes to a close, Ziva is in a relationship with a Mossad agent Michael Rivkin. Tony does not approve of Rivkin because he believes Michael killed an ICE agent and is conducting unauthorized operations on American soil. When Tony goes to Ziva's apartment to talk to her about his concerns, he finds Rivkin, and the two exchange harsh words and eventually come to blows. Tony kills Michael in self defense. Ziva is not convinced it is self defense and is heartbroken by the death of Michael. In the season finale, Aliyah, Tony, Gibbs, the Director, and Ziva go to Israel to meet with the Mossad. After she is forced to stay behind in Israel, Ziva decides finish Michael Rivkin's work as suggested by her father, the Director of Mossad. The final shot of the season is of Ziva, severely beaten and tied to a chair being ordered to tell everything she knows about NCIS.In the season 7 premiere, Truth or Consequences, it is revealed that Ziva was on a ship that disappeared near the Horn of Africa. After Ziva was captured, she was tortured for information about NCIS by Saleem Ulman, a Yale-educated terrorist running a training site in Somalia. Special Agents McGee, Dinozzo, and Gibbs formed a rescue mission and successfully brought her back to D.C. Ziva, no longer on speaking terms with her father, resigned from Mossad and sought a job as a full-fledged NCIS agent. This was granted in the episode Good Cop, Bad Cop after she revealed what really happened to her aboard the during her time away from NCIS. Now back on good terms with everyone on the team, including Tony, she is now an American citizen and getting better at her English speaking, to Tony's surprise. Officer Ziva David is a Mossad agent sent to NCIS following the murder of Special Agent Caitlin Todd by a rogue Mossad operative named Ari Haswari. She was Ari's control officer and half-sister; they shared the same father, who was the Deputy Director of Mossad (he has since been promoted to Director). During Kill Ari (Part 2) , NCIS Special Agent Gibbs is cornered by Ari, but then Ziva emerges and kills Ari. After Ari's death, she asked to be assigned as a liaison for Mossad at NCIS, where she subsequently joined Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs' team. Ziva is Jewish, though the episodes' plots rarely draw attention to this, and it is only lightly touched on during the series. She keeps kosher and is consistently seen wearing the Star of David on her necklace. De Pablo describes the character as someone who is completely different from anyone else on the show and that because she's been around men all her life; she's used to men in authority. She's not afraid of men. When her younger sister, Tali, was killed in a Hamas suicide bombing, Ziva was already a Mossad operative at the time and states that she was in the Israeli army for an unspecified time , whilst claiming that no one recruited her, that she volunteered for Mossad Show less «