It’s official: Yuval Raphael, last year’s Eurovision contestant, has co-written the song chosen as Israel’s entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2026, with Noam Bettan set to perform it on the contest stage in Vienna this May.
Israel’s public broadcaster KAN announced Friday that the song, which was written by Raphael with Nadav Aharoni and Tzlil Klipi, was selected on Friday by its professional committee from roughly 200 submissions. The music was composed by Aharoni and Klipi and produced by Aharoni, according to KAN.
It will now be sent to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) for approval. If it is cleared, the entry will be unveiled on March 5 in a special broadcast across KAN platforms, including KAN 11, KAN Gimel, and KAN BOX, as well as the broadcaster’s digital channels.
In 2024, the song Israel chose, “October Rain,” which referenced the October 7 massacre by Hamas at the Nova Music Festival, was rejected as too political by the EBU. It was then reworked by Keren Peles, its composer, and retitled “Hurricane,” which was accepted to Eurovision.
Raphael, who had not been a professional singer before winning the Next Star for Eurovision Contest, impressed the audiences and the judges in the contest with her innovative interpretations, especially her haunting, slow rendition of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” which she performed as a tribute to the nearly 400 concertgoers who were killed and kidnapped at the Nova Music Festival.
Raphael, who was also at the festival, hid in a bomb shelter for hours before she was rescued. Given her original interpretations of songs in the contest and in her subsequent solo career, it is no surprise that she has branched out into songwriting. Despite threats and harassment, Raphael finished second overall at Eurovision and first in the audience voting.
How does Israel pick its Eurovision song?
KAN’s song selection process for Eurovision has come in for a great deal of debate. For two years in a row, Keren Peles composed Israel’s song, and this year, several changes were made to the process.
Under the revised rules, any creator registered with ACUM, the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers in Israel, was eligible to send a song for consideration, a move that KAN said led to a surge in entries.
The songs were submitted anonymously, and the selection committee tried to prevent members from identifying the writers by the demo vocals. Many entries were presented in an AI-generated format so that voters could not identify the voices.
According to reports, Bettan played an unusually hands-on role even before the final vote. He helped shape the final versions of all four songs that reached the final stage.
KAN’s committee was chaired by Barak Itzkovitch and included music editors from the broadcaster, executives in KAN’s television division, and a representative from Keshet 12, along with the producer of The Next Star for Eurovision. A public representative and an external music expert served as observers during the process.
From the initial pool, the committee narrowed the list to roughly 40 songs for deeper discussion before selecting four finalists to be recorded in Bettan’s voice. After hearing all four recordings and Bettan’s perspective, the committee held a vote and chose the winning track by a large majority, according to reports.
KAN and Israeli news outlets are framing the selection as a small pivot. After two years of ballads at Eurovision, Israel's 2026 entry is being described as “a bit different” in style.
It will be performed in three languages: Hebrew, French, and English, as was “New Day Will Rise,” the song Raphael performed last year.
The Eurovision final is scheduled for May 16, and semi-finals will be on May 12 and 14.
As the broadcaster moves into the next phase, KAN closed its announcement with a note of gratitude to the songwriting community that took part in the process this year, thanking the “hundreds of creators” who submitted music.