Yuval Raphael, survivor of Nova massacre, to represent Israel at 2025 Eurovision
25-year-old singer says music has been ‘one of the strongest ingredients in my healing process’; she hid for eight hours under a pile of dead bodies in a roadside bomb shelter
Amy Spiro is a reporter and writer with The Times of Israel

Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the Hamas attack on the Nova music festival, will represent Israel at the 2025 Eurovision.
Raphael, 24, won the “Hakochav Haba” (Rising Star) reality contest on Wednesday night, winning the highest votes from the judges and the public, and will compete in the song contest in Basel, Switzerland, this May. The song she will sing is due to be selected in March by a committee convened by the Kan public broadcaster.
During the final of the contest on Keshet 12, Raphael, a vocal powerhouse, sang a ballad version of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” dedicating it to “all the angels” who were murdered at the festival.
“Music is one of the strongest ingredients in my healing process,” she said during the final.
The amateur singer was with friends at the Nova festival when it came under attack by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. She survived by hiding under piles of dead bodies inside a roadside bomb shelter.
Raphael said successive groups of terrorists showed up and opened fire inside the shelter to ensure everyone was dead, until she was finally rescued by IDF troops after eight hours. Out of more than 40 people packed inside the shelter, only 11 emerged alive. Raphael said she still has shrapnel from the attack embedded in her head and leg.
Since the Hamas atrocities, Raphael has spoken around the world about her experience, including at the UN Human Rights Council in April 2024.
“Trapped and fearing for my life, I witnessed unspeakable horrors – friends and strangers alike were injured and killed in front of my eyes,” she recounted. “When their bodies of those murdered fell on us, I understood that hiding under them was the only way I could survive the nightmare.”
Raphael, from Ra’anana, said she wants to represent Israel in Europe from a position of strength and with pride in her country.
“I want to tell them the story of the country, of what I went through, of what others went through,” she said in an interview on the program ahead of the final. “I want to tell the story, but not from a place of seeking pity. 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.”
Raphael won the contest by beating out a talented and eclectic group of performers, including finalists Valerie Hamaty, a Christian Arab from Jaffa who appeared in a previous season of the show; Moran Aharoni and Red Band, an unexpected duo of a diva and a wisecracking puppet; and Daniel Wais, a singer-songwriter from Kibbutz Be’eri whose father was murdered on October 7 and mother was kidnapped and slain in captivity.
Israel’s participation in the 2024 Eurovision in Malmo, Sweden, was swathed in controversy, with widespread calls for the country to be banned from the contest and boos from many inside the arena during the competition.
Eden Golan, Israel’s representative last year, was under strict Shin Bet protection and largely confined to her hotel room amid a series of threats and anti-Israel protests in the city. Tensions between the performers were also high, with some competitors accusing the Israeli delegation of bullying behavior backstage, while Golan said she was shunned and ostracized by the other singers.
Israel was also forced to rewrite its entry, originally titled “October Rain,” after it was deemed by the European Broadcasting Union to be too political in its reference to the Hamas October 7 attack. Israel ultimately submitted a lightly edited version, the power ballad “Hurricane,” to the competition.
The controversy and the ensuing backlash provided a boost to Golan, and Israel ultimately finished 5th overall in the grand final of the competition and second in the televote from nations around the world, with a strong show of support for the embattled contestant.
This year, Israel has also faced boycott calls, but the EBU has once again stated that the country will be allowed to take part, though protests in Basel during the competition are likely.