Standing on a rain-soaked Tel Aviv street, her dark hair plastered to her face and dressed in a simple jumper and trainers, Yuval Raphael could be mistaken for any other young woman in the city. Yet, a profound strength emanates from her, belying the horrific trauma she endured just two years prior, when she lay beneath corpses, playing dead to survive a massacre.
From Festival Horror to the Eurovision Stage
In October 2023, Yuval was among the revellers at the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Reim when Palestinian militants launched a deadly assault. Fleeing to a bomb shelter that was then sprayed with bullets, she survived by following her father's desperate phone advice to play dead, while 19 others inside were killed. This Hamas attack was the deadliest on Jewish civilians since the Holocaust and triggered the subsequent war in Gaza.
In a staggering turn of events, just 18 months later, the then-25-year-old found herself representing Israel on one of the world's most politically charged stages: the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 in Basel, Switzerland. Performing her song 'New Day Will Rise', she achieved a remarkable second place despite facing a torrent of protests, audible booing, and a coordinated campaign to exclude her country from the competition.
Confronting Hostility and Hypocrisy
Yuval describes an atmosphere of intense animosity. Pro-Palestinian activists called for Israel's ban, mobs gathered outside venues, and she was subjected to throat-slitting gestures from the crowd. She travelled with Mossad-level security, normally reserved for heads of state. The scale of the danger, she admits, only fully hit her once she returned home to Israel. "I wasn't scared. I was immersed in the emotion of the song," she recalls.
The hostility seeped backstage. While some contestants were initially kind, she was bewildered when several, including a young Norwegian singer, unfollowed her on Instagram immediately after the final. "It makes you wonder whether there's any value in that kind of hatred at all?" she questions, comparing the groupthink to the social experiment depicted in the film The Wave.
Despite the tension, she was stunned by winning the public vote in several countries, including Spain, where broadcasters had focused coverage solely on Gaza. She reserves special gratitude for the UK public. "I want to personally thank the people in the UK," she says. "You gave me my highest number of public votes. That meant more to me than I can explain."
The Aftermath and a Lifelong Mission
The controversy did not end with the contest. Winner Nemo from Switzerland later returned their trophy in protest, a gesture Yuval finds hollow. "When you give back your trophy, you turn something meant to unite people into a political statement," she states. She also addressed the formal complaints from Spain, Belgium, and Finland questioning the legitimacy of her public vote, which the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) dismissed after finding no irregular patterns.
For Yuval, the broader boycott campaign—which saw countries like Spain, Iceland, and Ireland withdraw from Eurovision over Israel's participation—is a painful microcosm of global attitudes. "Countries that preach values while excluding artists forgot the true role of music and culture: to build bridges, not walls," she argues.
Now focused on her music career, having released the mini-album '22:22' and recorded the theme 'Amber Skies' for the HBO series 'One Day in October', Yuval accepts that healing from her trauma is a lifelong process. "One of the biggest realisations I've had is accepting that I'll be in recovery forever—and that's okay," she says softly. Her mission is to share her story, urging people to look beyond social media outrage. "If you choose to have an opinion—especially one that can incite harm—you have a responsibility to understand both sides fully."
