Netanyahu speaks to Yuval Raphael after Eurovision 2nd-place finish, says she ‘did an incredible job’

Days after she came in an impressive second place in the Eurovision Song Contest, singer Yuval Raphael speaks via video chat with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who praises her performance.

“You brought so much honor and pride to your country, especially after what you went through,” Netanyahu tells Raphael, a survivor of the Hamas massacre at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023. “When you stood there with your hands up [at the end of the song] and said ‘Am Yisrael Chai,’ it moved all of our hearts. You did an incredible job, you’re wonderful.”

Raphael, who finished second in the contest with her song, “New Day Will Rise” — and got the most votes from the public — tells the prime minister that “all I wanted was to bring the country one moment, one second of pleasure in all this abnormal craziness that’s going on in here… that was the most important thing to me. And the most important thing is for the hostages to come home and be here with us and be happy with us and recover.”

Netanyahu says “we’re working very hard on this,” and tells Raphael that she brought Israel “a lot of honor, and you’re the real winner. Statistically, it’s true… You entered the hearts of a huge portion of the public in Europe.”

A number of countries have alleged that Israel’s popularity in the public vote has been unfairly manipulated, although the European Broadcasting Union has rejected any allegations of improper voting.