Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the Supernova music festival massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, will represent Israel at the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland, in May.
Raphael won the finals of the “Hakochav Haba” (“Rising Star”) song contest on Jan. 22. The season-long singing competition, which is broadcast on Israel’s Channel 12, selects the country’s representative to the popular European song contest.
Raphael sealed her victory with “two unforgettable performances” in the finals: ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” and “Writing’s on the Wall” by Sam Smith, Channel 12 reported.
She said she wants to represent those who didn’t survive the massacre.
“That’s why I want to be there—for all the angels who couldn’t be here now,” Raphael told Kan Reshet Bet radio. “I got to fulfill a lifelong dream and others are left there only in the shadows. It’s the only thing left of them—this shadow still dancing. That’s why it’s crucial to represent us. That’s why I want to be there; to bring the voice forward, because it’s so important.”
“That’s why it’s important for me to represent us. That’s why I want to be there—for all the angels who couldn’t be here now.”
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) January 23, 2025
Listen to the heartfelt words of Yuval Raphael, a survivor of Nova, who will represent Israel at Eurovision 2025. pic.twitter.com/7wnZ1X6SXB
Four days after the massacre, Rafael was interviewed along with other survivors by Channel 12.
“We were at a party, and around 6 a.m., a barrage of missiles began,” she said. “We all rushed to the car, we were five friends—two of them are currently hospitalized.
“When we got to the car, there was a crazy mass of people and vehicles trying to get out [of the festival area]. In the end, when we reached the road, we saw a [bomb] shelter, so we decided to stop on the side and enter it to protect ourselves from the [Gazan] missiles,” she said.
Raphael, 24, hid in the bomb shelter for seven hours. Hamas terrorists threw grenades into the shelter. Raphael, pretending to be dead, hid underneath the bodies of the dead. Forty young people entered the shelter at the start of the Hamas invasion. Ten left alive.
More than 360 people in total were killed at the music festival. Hamas-led terrorists murdered some 1,200 that day in a surprise attack from the Gaza Strip. They kidnapped 251.
On Wednesday and Thursday, many well-wishers congratulated her on social media.
“Mazel Tov YuvalRaphael — Israel’s next representative to the @eurovision competition and the winner of The Rising Star contest. Yuval is a Nova survivor and now she says her relationship with music has an even more emotional meaning. She’s not only telling her story of survival,” tweeted actress Noa Tishby, who served as Israel’s special envoy for combating antisemitism and delegitimization from 2022 to 2023.
The semi-final draw on Jan. 28 will determine in which Eurovision semifinal Raphael will compete, on May 13 or 15, in an effort to make it to the final on May 17.
Israel has won the Eurovision Song Contest four times: 1978, 1979, 1998 and 2018. According to Eurovision bookmakers, Belgium is the favorite this year. But since Raphael’s selection, Israel has been moved from fifth to third favorite by the oddsmakers.
