On Sunday, Israeli Yuval Raphael brought home a victory that meant far more than music when she won second place overall at the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland. The judges from participating countries awarded Israel a mere 60 points, putting Raphael in 14th place. However, this was offset by an extraordinary 297 votes she was awarded from public voting.
In comparison, “Wasted Love,” the winning entry from Austria, won 258 points from the juries but only 178 from audience televoters. This is the third year in a row that popular votes for Israel vastly outnumbered the votes it received from the national jury.
“I feel like we’ve won at life,” she told Kan, the public broadcaster. “I don’t know how to explain it. I’ll be grateful for this situation every day of my life, I’ll be grateful for our nation every day of my life.”
“All I wanted to do was bring honor and pride to this country, to make them proud, to give them a small second of peace amid all the madness,” she said.
“There is no one prouder than me to be the voice of these people,” Yuval Raphael said, her voice trembling with emotion as she began her remarks at the post-final press conference. “What a situation this is. Second place in Eurovision, that’s what we need, right?” she added, still visibly stunned. “I don’t know how to make sense of this situation at all, but all I have to say is – Am Israel Chai [the people of Israel live], and there never was and never will be anyone like us. [However] we will never have a victory like our hostages simply returning home… that’s the real victory.”
The decision came as many Israelis headed to bomb shelters due to the color red sirens warning of missiles being fired from Yemen.
“I heard about it, I’m so sorry that this is what we’re going through,” she added. “I love you with all my heart, I hope so much that everyone is safe. I’m sending you love. All I want is to return to you. Tomorrow I’m with you – through thick and thin, in sirens, in whatever comes our way. Truly. I just want to come back to you.”
Boos and Palestinian flags were reported and according to Israeli reporters in Basel, security thwarted two separate attempts by protesters to rush the stage during Raphael’s performance.
Both the Belgian and Spanish broadcasters aired pro-Palestinian messages ahead of and during the Eurovision broadcasts. Spain’s RTVE flashed a screen that read in English and Spanish: “When human rights are at stake, silence is not an option. Peace and Justice for Palestine.”
Pro-Hamas protests before the contest led the European Broadcasting Union to update its flag policy, allowing PLO flags and other banners to be displayed in the audience, so long as they are not “associated with hate, terrorism or violence.” Hamas supporters and some broadcasters, including Spain’s RTVE, called for Israel to be banned, but the Eurovision directors resisted this.
According to the rules, Political messaging is banned on stage, and only national flags are allowed during performances and official events. Last year, Israel’s entry, ”October Rain”, was deemed too political and was disqualified.
The song was written by Keren Peles and produced by Tomer Biran. It blends English, Hebrew, and French and focuses on resilience, memory, and hope.
The song contains the Hebrew verse from Song of Songs (8:7).
Israel has won the music competition four times in its 52-year run: in 1978, 1979, 1998 and most recently in 2018, with Netta Barzilai’s “Toy.” Though a number of countries expressed disapproval of Israel hosting the 2019 show in Tel Aviv,
Raphael, age 24, is from Ra’anana. On October 7, she was at the Nova Festival in Re’im when Hamas attacked. After being hit by shrapnel, she hid in a small bomb shelter near Kibbutz Be’eri, lying beneath bodies and pretending to be dead.
“I had to step on bodies to get out,” she said in an interview. “It was unbearable.”
“You ask yourself: ‘Why was I saved and not them?’” she said. “Once I made peace with that, I decided to give my dreams a chance. I got a second shot at life. To let fear hold me back would be dishonoring those who didn’t survive. I have to fly with what I’ve been given.”
