Israel debuted on Sunday night the full song that Yuval Raphael will perform in the Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland, this May.

Israel’s Kan 11 premiered during a live broadcast the music video for “New Day Will Rise,” a powerful ballad written by singer-songwriter Keren Peles that has mostly English lyrics but with some French and Hebrew as well. Yuval, 24, lives in the Israeli city of Ra’anana — same as Noa Kirel, Israel’s representative in the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest – but lived as a child with her family in Switzerland for three years. She is fluent in Hebrew, English, and French.

Raphael sings in the chorus: “New day will rise/ Life will go on/ Everyone cries/ Don’t cry alone/ Darkness will fade/ All the pain will go by/ But we will stay / Even if you say goodbye.” The song has a Hebrew line from the biblical Song of Songs, which translates to: “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.”

Raphael survived the Nova music festival massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, in Re’im, Israel, after hiding from Hamas terrorists in a roadside bomb shelter. She pretended to be dead and laid under dead bodies for several hours until she was rescued. Terrorists killed 370 people and abducted 44 hostages at the site of the festival.

In the music video for “New Day Will Rise,” Raphael and a group of young people gather together to sing, dance, and enjoy each other’s company in a grassy area, which is reminiscent of what young Israelis did at the Nova music festival before the Hamas-led Oct. 7 onslaught. Red anemones, Israel’s national flower and the flower that is known for growing specifically in the southern region, are seen in the grass in the music video.

In mid-January, Raphael won the Israeli television singing competition “HaKochav Haba” (“Rising Star”), whose winner goes on to represent Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest.

“Throughout the season of ‘Rising Star,’ I chose songs solely from a place of emotion, as soon as I felt a twinge in my stomach,” Raphael told Kan 11. “When I heard this song [‘New Day Will Rise’], I had a twinge in my stomach and said – ‘This is your song.’” She also commented on the song’s connection to her surviving the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack.

“One of the most exciting things that has happened to me in my life is the very extreme transition from the most terrible event of my life on Oct. 7, to such a great and empowering moment – representing my country at Eurovision. The feeling of personal victory is immense,” she said.

The lyrics and the video for “New Day Will Rise” has been approved by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the Eurovision Song Contest. Last year, Israel’s original song submission, “October Rain,” was rejected by the EBU for being too political since it referenced the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. Kan ultimately rewrote the song and titled it “Hurricane.” It was performed in the Eurovision by Eden Golan, who finished fifth place in the competition.

Watch the music video for “New Day Will Rise” below.



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Two men accused of being members of a Russian organized crime group will face trial in the United States on Monday over what prosecutors call an unsuccessful Tehran-backed attempt to kill an Iranian dissident living in New York.

Federal prosecutors say Iran‘s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a US-designated terrorist organization, in 2021 hired Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov, members of a “Russian mob” sub-group, to kill an Iranian American journalist and activist who has spoken out against the Iranian government’s treatment of women.

Amirov, 45, and Omarov, 40, have pleaded not guilty to murder for hire and attempted murder in aid of racketeering.

Omarov’s lawyer, Elena Fast, said in a statement, “Mr. Omarov is presumed innocent.” Amirov’s lawyers did not respond to a request for comment. In court papers, lawyers for both men have said it was “inaccurate” to refer to them as members of the Russian mob.

Prosecutors have not named the target of the alleged plot, who they have said in court papers is expected to testify at the trial.

Masih Alinejad, a journalist who left Iran in 2009, has told Reuters she was the target of both the alleged murder plot and a previous alleged attempt by Iranian intelligence officers to kidnap her and take her to Iran.

Alinejad has brought attention to women in Iran protesting laws requiring head coverings, as well as accounts of Iranians killed in demonstrations in 2019.

“I am very excited to join the public trial as a witness to testify against those who were hired by the Islamic Republic to kill me,” Alinejad said in an interview on Friday. “It’s like I’ve been given a second life.”

The trial, before US District Judge Colleen McMahon, kicks off with jury selection on Monday in Manhattan federal court.

The charges were part of a broader push by the Justice Department during former President Joe Biden’s administration to crack down on transnational repression, or efforts by US adversaries like Iran and China to silence dissidents on American soil.

The two-week trial could provide a window into alleged ties between Iran‘s government and criminal organizations prosecutors say it hires to do its “dirty work.”

A representative of Iran‘s UN mission did not respond to a request for comment on the trial of Amirov and Omarov.

US prosecutors in 2021 brought charges against four Iranian intelligence officers over the alleged kidnapping plot. They are at large, and Tehran has called the allegations baseless.

The alleged murder plot came to light in 2022, when Khalid Mehdiyev – an alleged co-conspirator of Amirov and Omarov – was arrested outside Alinejad’s New York home with an AK-47 rifle.

Prosecutors say a Revolutionary Guard brigadier general named Ruhollah Bazghandi began monitoring Alinejad in July 2021. They say Bazghandi later hired Amirov, an alleged Russian mob leader living in Iran at the time, to kill her. Omarov and Mehdiyev are also part of the mob, prosecutors said.

Bazghandi was also charged but is not in US custody.

Mehdiyev, 26, pleaded not guilty to murder-for-hire charges in February 2023, but the status of his case is unclear. Prison records show he was released from US custody on May 19, 2023.

Neither a Justice Department spokesperson nor a lawyer for Mehdiyev responded to requests for comment.

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A fake plan to attack on a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives was fabricated by an organized crime network in order to divert police resources, Australian police said on Monday.

Authorities in January found explosives in a caravan, or trailer, that could have created a blast wave of 40 meters (130 feet), along with the address of a Sydney synagogue.

But police on Monday said the discovery was part of a “criminal con job,” with the ease with which the caravan was found along with the lack of a detonator suggesting there was never any intent to attack Jewish targets.

“The caravan was never going to cause a mass casualty event but instead was concocted by criminals who wanted to cause fear for personal benefit,” Krissy Barrett, the Australian Federal Police‘s Deputy Commissioner for National Security, told a news conference.

“Almost immediately, experienced investigators … believed that the caravan was part of a fabricated terrorism plot – essentially a criminal con job.”

Police are yet to make any arrests in relation to the planning of the fabricated plot but have gone public with the information in order to provide comfort to the Jewish community in Sydney, Dave Hudson, New South Wales Police Deputy Commissioner, told the news conference.

“It was about causing chaos within the community, causing threat, causing angst, diverting police resources away from their day jobs, to have them focus on matters that would allow them to get up to or engage in other criminal activity,” Hudson said.

Police are investigating a suspect involved in an organized crime network, he added.

Australia has suffered a spate of antisemitic attacks in recent months, with homes, schools, synagogues, and vehicles targeted by vandalism and arson, drawing the ire of the country’s traditional ally Israel.

The post Fake Plan to Attack Australia Synagogue Fabricated by Organized Crime, Police Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.