When Yuval Raphael takes the Eurovision stage in Basel, Switzerland, the world will see a young Israeli woman standing tall, singing for her country.
But as the music swells and her voice fills the arena, every listener should remember exactly where she was on October 7: trapped inside a tiny roadside bomb shelter, buried under the bodies of her murdered friends, pretending to be dead as Hamas terrorists stormed in, sprayed bullets, and threw grenades at the dozens of festivalgoers hiding inside.
For seven hours, she lay motionless, covered in blood—some of it hers, most of it not—waiting for an Israeli rescue that took too long to come.
Now, almost a year and a half later, she will sing on one of the world’s biggest stages, as a contestant and as a survivor.
Raphael, 24, from Ra’anana, was one of thousands of Israelis who arrived at the Nova music festival near Re’im, close to the Gaza border, on the night of October 6. As reported by Mako, the festival was supposed to last until midday on October 7—a celebration of music and dance, surrounded by desert landscapes.
But at 6:30 a.m., everything changed. Air raid sirens rang out, warning of incoming rocket fire from Gaza. According to Israel Hayom, Raphael and her four friends rushed to their car, hoping to escape. But as traffic built up, gunfire erupted. Terrorists, armed with automatic weapons, were storming the festival.
"We saw people screaming, running toward us. Someone yelled, ‘They’re shooting! They’re killing everyone!’" Raphael later told Channel 12 News.
With nowhere to go, she and her friends spotted a roadside bomb shelter and ran inside.
Inside the ‘shelter of death’
At least 40 people crammed into the small concrete structure, hoping to be safe from both rockets and bullets. But Hamas fighters found them within minutes.
According to Mako, the terrorists fired blindly into the shelter, aiming at anything that moved. The walls were filled with gunshots. Bodies collapsed on top of one another. The wounded screamed.
In the middle of the horror, Raphael’s father, Zvika Raphael, called her phone. Their conversation, later reported by News 13, became one of the defining recordings of the massacre.
"Dad, there are dead people on top of me," she whispered. "Please, send the police."
"I’m sending them now, sweetheart," he answered. "Stay quiet. Don’t move."
As Hamas continued shooting, he gave her the only advice that could save her life. "Yuval, stop breathing. Play dead. Do not move. If they think you’re dead, they’ll leave you alone."
Raphael obeyed. She lay still for hours, pinned under corpses, soaked in blood. As reported by Israel Hayom, the terrorists returned multiple times, shooting anyone who moved, throwing grenades inside.
"I could feel the heat of the explosions, feel my body being crushed under the weight of the dead," she later told Channel 12. "I kept repeating to myself, ‘Don’t breathe. Don’t move. Stay dead.’"
The long wait for rescue
For seven hours, Raphael waited—silent, paralyzed, barely alive. At 2:00 p.m., Israeli security forces finally reached the shelter.
But when the soldiers called out for survivors to come out, no one moved. As Channel 12 reported, Raphael and the others feared it was a Hamas trap. Only when one of the rescuers called a survivor’s name—"Nitzan, your father is waiting for you"—did they finally dare to move.
Raphael stepped out into the daylight, her clothes soaked in blood, her body stiff from lying in one position for so long. "I just kept looking at the sky," she told Mako. "I couldn’t believe I was alive."
In the months after October 7, Raphael struggled with PTSD and survivor’s guilt. According to Israel Hayom, she vowed not to let trauma define her. "I decided I wasn’t going to live my life with PTSD. I wanted to turn my pain into something meaningful," she said.
She became an advocate for survivors of the Nova massacre, traveling to Europe and the US to share her story. "People need to know what happened," she told Channel 12. "They need to hear it from someone who was there."
At the same time, she continued pursuing her dream of music. In January 2025, she won "The Next Star for Eurovision", Israel’s national selection contest, earning the right to represent Israel in Basel.
A performance under political fire
Raphael is not just walking into a music competition, but stepping onto one of the most politically charged stages in the world.
According to Mako, Eurovision 2025 comes at a time of rising hostility toward Israel in Europe. Some worry that she will face boos, jeers, or even protests, similar to what Israeli contestants have experienced in past years.
"I know some people won’t want me there," she told Israel Hayom. "But that’s exactly why I have to go. I want to stand on that stage, wrapped in the Israeli flag, and make sure the world hears our story."
Yuval is a survivor who refused to stay silent, a voice that Hamas failed to silence.