Israeli Strikes Killed Five in Gaza as Israel Faces Eurovision 2026 in Vienna

The New Arab said Gaza health officials blamed Israeli strikes and gunfire for killing five, and it linked the wider war on Gaza to upheaval around Israel’s participation in cultural events including the Venice Art Biennale.

“The Eurovision Song Contest is now facing the biggest boycott and most serious crisis in its history after five European broadcasters withdrew rather than share a stage with genocidal Israel”

BDS Movement

The BDS Movement said the Eurovision Song Contest is facing “the biggest boycott and most serious crisis in its history” after five European broadcasters withdrew rather than share a stage with “genocidal Israel.”

BDS Movement

The BDS Movement framed the boycott as a response to “Israel’s ongoing, livestreamed genocide against 2.3M Palestinians in Gaza,” and it said the call to exclude Israel has been repeated since 2024.

In parallel, Shalom.it reported that Israel was drawn for the first semifinal of Eurovision 2026 in Vienna, with the first semifinal set for May 12 and the final scheduled for May 16.

Shalom.it added that the allocation draw assigned Israel to the second half of the night and that the opening semifinal would see Israel facing fourteen other countries including Sweden, Finland, Poland, Serbia, and Greece, plus Georgia and Portugal.

The BDS Movement said the chairman of the board of Iceland’s public broadcaster stated, “the Israeli government has co-opted Eurovision,” and it described an Israeli diplomatic effort as an “intensive, months-long diplomatic campaign.”

In the same statement, the BDS Movement quoted Spanish broadcaster RTVE’s president saying, “Israel manoeuvred in the shadows for months. What seemed like a democratic debate in Geneva was just a farce cooked up in backroom offices…”.

Haaretz

Haaretz’s Eurovision and Venice framing centered on the idea that “War Is a Participant No One Can Exclude,” while its page also referenced Eurovision’s grand final and an audience vote of 220 points.

Haaretz reported that the hosts announced “Israel has taken the lead!” after a huge audience vote of 220 points catapulted Israeli singer Noam Bettan to the top of the scoreboard in the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday.

The BDS Movement also cited a UN-published report, Gaza Genocide: a collective crime, saying Israel’s participation in Eurovision and the Venice Biennale are “prominent examples of how ‘Israel has been sheltered from accountability’ in global fora.”

Shalom.it said Israel’s confirmation in the Eurovision lineup was an “important organizational step” for the Israeli entourage, which would “finalize the artistic lineup and the strategy to win over both the technical jury and the European television audience.”

“Home » Israel drawn for the first semifinal of the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 in Vienna”

Shalom.it

The BDS Movement said Eurovision organisers the EBU “utterly tarnished the contest” and argued that failing to ban Israel “has helped to normalise its genocide and contributed to its destruction of the rule of international law.”

It also claimed that Amnesty International called the failure to suspend Israel from Eurovision “an act of cowardice and an illustration of blatant double standards,” adding that “Israel’s impunity can no longer be tolerated.”

The BDS Movement said alternative “genocide-free Eurovision events” were taking place across Europe including in Brussels, Oslo, and host city Vienna, where it said “there is also a demonstration planned.”

Meanwhile, Shalom.it placed the Eurovision final on May 16 in Vienna and described the competition as having two semifinals—May 12 and May 14—around Israel’s participation in the first semifinal’s second-half slot.