Nova Festival Survivor To Represent Israel at Eurovision 2025
Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the Nova music festival massacre, will represent Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland, in May 2025. The 24-year-old singer won the Rising Star reality singing competition on Wednesday, securing her spot on the international stage.
Raphael dedicated her winning performance of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” to the victims of the festival attack.
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Like thousands of other Israelis, Raphael was attending the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im on October 7, 2023, when Hamas gunmen carried out an attack. She took cover in a roadside bomb shelter, but Hamas fighters soon opened fire on the shelter. Raphael survived the attack by hiding for hours under a pile of dead bodies. A total of 364 individuals were killed in the massacre.
In last year’s Eurovision, Israel placed fifth out of 25 countries with “Hurricane,” a ballad performed by Eden Golan with lyrics referencing the October 7 attacks. The competition was marked by protests and calls to bar Israel from participating in light of the Israel-Hamas war.
Eurovision 2025 will take place in May in Basel. In an interview on Rising Star ahead of the finale, Raphael said she expects there to be protests. “I want to tell them the story of the country, of what I went through, of what others went through. I want to tell the story, but not from a place of seeking pity,” she said. “I want it to be from a place of standing strong in the face of this, and in the face of the boos I’m 100% sure will come from the crowd.”
