On January 20th 2026. Israel selected its artist for Eurovision 2026 via the final of “Hakohav Haba La’Euorvision 2026” (Eng: The Rising Star For Eurovision 2026).
Noam Bettan won the contest and will represent Israel in Eurovision 2026. His song will be internally selected by March 2026.
The Selection Process
The song will be selected internally.
Kan revealed that around 200 songs were submitted this year, 2 of them were written by Noam Bettan and his team. Here is our selection process will be managed:
- The submission window opened on December 21st, 2025, and closed on January 26th, 2026.
- Songwriters must hold Israeli citizenship. However, one of the composers/producers can be foreign.
- The song must feature at least 2 sentences in Hebrew.
- Songwriters who have had a song selected for Eurovision for 2 years in a row, can’t submit a song.
- Songwriters who is in charge of songs representing other countries in Eurovision 2026, will be banned.
- The selection promotes fair competition and therefore encourages songwriters to submit their songs performed by anonymous performers (and even using AI tools). In particular, the performer can’t be one of the songwriters.
- Each songwriter/composer can submit up to 2 different songs.
- Kan has the right to approach songwriters to submit songs directly.
- Once the submission window closes, a preliminary committee will shortlist the songs. The committee will feature Kan‘s representatives, musicians, TV personalities, and more. They will shortlist up to 40 songs.
- The main committee will then examine the shortlisted songs. The committee will be based on representatives of Kan, Keshet 12, the public, and music industry experts.
- The main committee will pick a handful of songs to be recorded by the Israeli artist for Eurovision 2026 and make a final decision based on them.
- The final of “The Rising Star” will be held towards the end of January 2026.
- Kan will reveal the Israeli song for Eurovision 2026 at the beginning of March 2026.
- The full regulations can be found here
Israel will compete in semi-final 1 of Eurovision 2026 (May 12th, 2026).
The country is allocated to perform in the second half of the show.
Eurovision 2026 will be held in Vienna, Austria, on May 12th, 14th, and 16th, 2026.
