On October 7, 2023, Yuva Raphael hid under bodies for eight hours to survive the Hamas terrorist attack. This year, in Basel, she will represent Israel at Eurovision.
For several hours, she hid under a pile of bodies. She also simulates her death. Yuval Raphael, 24, survivor of the massacre perpetrated by Hamas at the Nova festival on October 7, will represent Israel at Eurovision 2025.
By winning the reality TV competition HaKokhav Haba (“The Next Star”) on Wednesday evening, she opened the doors to the competition, which will take place in Basel, Switzerland.
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A song for “the angels” murdered at the festival
During the competition, the young woman, a simple amateur, sang among others a ballad version of “Dancing Queen” by the group ABBA, dedicating it to “all the angels” murdered during the festival. And this Thursday, with tears in her eyes, she commented on the images of her performance on public radio.
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“It’s a moment where I say to myself: how lucky I am to be here. And at the same time, this song is about all these angels who don't have the chance to be here, […] that’s why I want to represent us,” she explained.
She now hopes to perform in English at the competition, on a text yet to be written, so that the whole world understands her message. Questioned on the Walla information site just after Yuval Raphael's victory, one of the members of the jury was delighted with this “incredible Cinderella story, a young girl who arrives like that, without having followed any musical education”.
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Another judge summed up the symbolism: “She survived the horror, rose from the rubble and did public diplomacy for us.”
-Eight hours under the bodies
The young woman recounted in an interview with public radio Kan the eight hours spent in the shelter, under the bodies of slaughtered festival-goers. “The shelter was on Route 232, which means that almost all the terrorist cells passed in front of our shelter, and each of them checked that we were really dead” by opening fire, she remembers.
The artery in question is today nicknamed the “road of death”: it winds between the kibbutzim attacked by Palestinian commandos. In testimony in April before the United Nations Human Rights Council, Yuval Raphael indicated that of more than 40 people crammed into the shelter, only 11 had emerged alive.
“The grenades always arrived after the shots. At one point, to hide, I moved to the side, which exposed my ear […]. I stuck my finger in my ear so my hearing wouldn't be affected,” she explained on Thursday.
Music is so important to me that it accompanied me even in that moment
Yuval Raphael
“I don’t expect to arrive in a place where everyone will help me and love me”
Israel's participation in Eurovision 2024 in Malmö, Sweden, in the midst of the war against Hamas in Gaza triggered by the October 7 attack, was accompanied by pro-Palestinian demonstrations bringing together several thousand people.
The Israeli Eden Golan, whistled several times, came in fifth position for her song “Hurricane”. Could such demonstrations occur again this year? If this is the case, Yuval Raphael assures that she feels “strong enough” to face this possibility.
“I don't expect to come to a place where everyone will help me and love me […]. I know I will arrive in a hostile place,” she said, adding that she would have a team to support her, including a psychologist available around the clock.
“This whole year has helped me understand what I need to keep my spirits up, in a situation much more difficult than boos. »
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