{"id":669478,"date":"2025-05-16T01:44:23","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T22:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/israel-eurovision-entrant-performs-without-incident-at-semi-finals\/"},"modified":"2025-05-16T01:44:23","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T22:44:23","slug":"israel-eurovision-entrant-performs-without-incident-at-semi-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/israel-eurovision-entrant-performs-without-incident-at-semi-finals\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Eurovision Entrant Performs Without Incident At Semi-Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tIsrael\u2019s Eurovision entrant Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack at Nova Music Festival, had her performance go off relatively without a hitch on the broadcast for the contest\u2019s semi-finals in Basel, Switzerland, Thursday night, shirking even her own expectations as she and many were preparing for loud boos as her country\u2019s inclusion in Eurovision has drawn controversy amid the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n

\n\tRaphael was one of 10 contestants from Thursday\u2019s semi-final to punch their ticket to the finals, alongside Lithuania\u2019s Katarsis, Armenia\u2019s PARG, Denmark\u2019s Sissal, Austria\u2019s JJ, Luxembourg\u2019s Laura Thorn, Finland\u2019s Erika Vikman, Latvia\u2019s Tautumeitas, Malta\u2019s Miriana Conte and Greece\u2019s Klavdia. <\/p>\n

\n\tThey will join Iceland\u2019s Vaeb, Poland\u2019s Justyna Steczkowska, Estonia\u2019s Tommy Cash, Ukraine\u2019s Ziferblat, Sweden\u2019s KAJ, Portugal\u2019s Napa, Norway\u2019s Kyle Alessandro, San Marino\u2019s Gabry Ponte, Albania\u2019s Shkodra Elektronike,and Netherland\u2019s Claude.<\/p>\n

\n\tEurovision\u2019s finals will air on Saturday at noon PST on Peacock. <\/p>\n

\n\tIsrael\u2019s presence at the contest has been a controversial subject at the past two Eurovision Song Contests amid the war in Gaza, as over 70 former contestants signed an open letter last week calling for Israel to be banned from the event citing \u201cgenocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and the decades-long regime of apartheid and military occupation against the entire Palestinian people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe broadcast itself showed little beyond the performance and cheers, some photos and videos online show some attendees in the audience holding up Palestinian flags. Israel\u2019s Eurovision presence drew protests ahead of the semi-finals<\/a> as well. <\/p>\n

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\n\tCritics have argued that Israel should be banned from the contest, as Russia was back in 2022 over its invasion of Ukraine. While the broadcast didn\u2019t show protests, some images online from Thursday\u2019s rehearsals showed attendees in the audience waving Palestinian flags while Raphael performed.<\/p>\n

\n\tRaphael has spoken publicly about her experience at Nova, telling the UN Human Rights Council last year that she fled to a bomb shelter the day of the attack, hiding under dead bodies while she herself pretended to be dead for hours until her father and another Nova attendee saved her. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEvery time we [those who were still alive] raised our heads, we couldn\u2019t understand why there were less and less people in the bomb shelter,\u201d she told the UN. \u201cWe thought the terrorists were taking the dead bodies. We didn\u2019t realize it was because of the grenades, blowing up their bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLast year\u2019s Israel entrant Eden Golan was booed during her Eurovision performance, and Raphael told the BBC earlier this week that she\u2019d practiced with boos and noises in the background preparing for Thursday. \u201cI think I\u2019m expecting it, but we are here to sing and I\u2019m going to sing my heart out for everyone,\u201d Raphael said. <\/p>\n

\n\tOutside of Thursday\u2019s semi-final, Celine Dion made a surprise video app<\/a>earance on Tuesday during the first semi-final, 37 years after she won Eurovision in 1988.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMusic unites us, not only this evening, not only at the moment,\u201d Dion said in French. \u201cWonderful. It is our strength, our support and our support in the moments where we need it. I love you all, Europe and the rest of the world, of course. Kisses, I love you.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israel\u2019s Eurovision entrant Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack at Nova Music Festival, had her performance go off relatively without a hitch on the broadcast for the contest\u2019s semi-finals in Basel, Switzerland, Thursday night, shirking even her own expectations as she and many were preparing for loud boos as her…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":669481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/GettyImages-2214530609-1.jpg?w=1440&h=810&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[51175,39579],"class_list":["post-669478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-eurovision-song-contest","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}