Surviving from October 7, Yuval Raphael, Israel’s candidate in Eurovision, said he had found a medium of healing in music and wants to bring the European song of the song a universal message “of hope and solidarity.”
“Music […] It has always been therapy for me, but from the seventh place [octobre]I feel it is simply something that cures my soul, “said the young woman with long brown hair during an AFP interview in her apartment in Tel Aviv.
Difficult to imagine through the quiet and raised image that returns the terrible experience that lived on October 7, 2023, hidden under a stack of corpses and pretending to be dead while the armed men of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas massacred several hundred attendees of the festival, on October 7, 2023, in the places of a technological celebration in the south of Israel.
A song in English, French and Hebrew
Yuval Raphael will defend Israel in the Eurovision competition that will open on May 13 in Basel, Switzerland, with The new day will rise (“A New Day Will Get Up”), A song in English, with some words in French and Hebrew.
“There is a passage that says he is crying, he does not cry alone,” explains the singer, the yellow tape in solidarity with the Israeli hostages stopped in Gaza since October 7 on the reverse of his leather jacket, “which reminds us that we all go through tests, that we all pass through ups and downs.”
At 24, Yuval Raphael won the Israeli telecrochet in January The next star With a ballad version of a classic of the Swedish group Abba, Dance starobtaining its ticket for Eurovision 2025.
The new day will rise It is a song that “represents hope and spreads a lot of love and solidarity, and that is exactly the message that I would like to convey to the world,” announces the singer.
Eight hours below the bodies of other Juerguistas
Yuval Raphael was celebrating with friends at the Nova Festival when Hamas launched his surprise attack in southern Israel early in the morning of October 7, 2023, the deadliest day that the country had met.
After being able to flee from the facilities after the save of rockets that preceded the assault, he testified that he had taken refuge in one of the many small rudimentary shelters in particular along the way, spending eight hours under the bodies of other Juerguistas killed before his eyes.
She survived covering her face with the hair of a young woman killed by her side.
Yuval Raphaël says he always dreamed of becoming a singer or actress, but confesses that, younger, she could not “not sing in front of [sa] family or [ses] Friends “, being” too shy “: I was practicing karaoke, alone in his room.
He tried to overcome the horror of October 7 that began to realize his dream. Participating in a therapeutic retirement for Nova’s survivors, binds to a collective song workshop and quickly encourages auditions for The next star.
Call exclusion
Israel has participated in Eurovision since 1973 and won the competition four times, the last in 2018.
In 2024, the Israeli candidate, Eden Golan, had received threats and had occurred under high protection in Malmö (Sweden), where thousands of people had demonstrated during the duration of the competition against their presence, against the context of the devastating war that Israel was directed by Gaza in reprisals on October 7 and suffering in the context of Palestinian civilians.
Against the calls to the exclusion of Israel launched in Europe, the European Radio Union (Uuer), an organizer of the competition, defended the participation of the Hebrew State by arguing that the Israeli public radio was a member of the Le Pay organization had its place there.
Given these controversies, Yuval Raphael, who spent three years in Switzerland in his childhood, said he tried to stay focused on his song: “Being completely concentrated, 100%, on the things I can control is what allows me to keep my feet on the ground.”
More than 370 people were massacred in Nova, and 44 hostages taken, of which eleven are alive, they are still retained in captivity in the strip of Gaza.
Source: BFM TV
