Staff-Sgt Mazal Orkobi

Jan 5, 2003 - Staff-Sgt. Mazal Orkobi, 20, of Azor, was one of 23 people killed when two suicide bombers blew themselves up on a pedestrian mall in Tel Aviv's Naveh Sha'anan neighborhood near the old central bus station.

Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack, which apparently was assisted by Islamic Jihad.

Mazal (Mazi) Orkobi was killed on her way home from her Communications Corps base, where she had just completed her compulsory military service and had spent her first day in the professional army.

"The army didn't want to let her go, they loved her so much," said her grandfather, Yoav Noam. "She signed on for the regular army and one day is all she had... She was so full of life and they took her like an angel. She was a brilliant student, she had exceptional grades. Whatever we didn't know, she knew, and that's how we'll remember her."

Mazal graduated Sharett High School in Holon, whose teachers described her as a quiet, smiling girl who excelled in her studies. Psychologists were meeting with students at the school, who were shocked at her death and at the fact that the father of another student was killed in the same terrorist attack.

Staff-Sgt. Mazal Orkobi was buried at the Holon Military Cemetery. She is survived by her parents, Shlomit and Amnon, a sister, Keren, 19, and brother, Liran, 17.