Over the last few days, you’ve probably seen an image of rows of white tents in a desert spelling out the phrase “All Eyes on Rafah,” snow-capped mountains looming in the background, shared ad nauseum in your Instagram Stories. Bella Hadid has posted it, and so has Nicola Coughlan, Jenna Ortega, and more than 44 million others as of Wednesday. The image has become impossible to escape following Israel’s military assault in Rafah this past weekend, which set a refugee encampment in the city on fire, killing at least 45 people and injuring more than 200. The attack and a separate air strike Tuesday in nearby Al-Mawasi have left Gazans with virtually no place to go and led to a global outcry.
The phrase “All Eyes on Rafah” can be traced back to Rick Peeperkorn, who leads the World Health Organization’s office for Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. In February, Peeperkorn gave a press conference warning that Israeli forces launching a full-blown military operation in the city would lead to “unfathomable catastrophe, further expanding the humanitarian disaster beyond all imagination.” He added, “All eyes are on Rafah.” It has since become a rallying cry for pro-Palestinian groups and occasionally trended online as the Israeli military has escalated its attacks on the city.
But the viral image, which Instagram shows was originally shared as a template by the user “shahv4012,” seems to be AI-generated, according to experts. As some have pointed out, the graphic offers a sanitized version of what’s going on in Rafah and doesn’t accurately depict the conditions on the ground: Shelling has killed civilians and devastated infrastructure, and refugees have been forced to live in cramped encampments with little access to clean water or food. It also doesn’t capture the brutal aftermath of this week’s strikes — photos and videos circulating on social media showed the charred bodies of the victims and one decapitated infant.
“It’s so frustrating because we’re seeing people — that for months and months and months have done nothing, have been silent — are now jumping on the laziest form of activism,” journalist Yumna Patel said in a TikTok video. “You couldn’t even bring yourself to share like a real photo of, like, a real-life atrocity, of which there is no shortage of those happening, so you waited for a weird, palatable AI-generated image to go circulate around.”
The graphic has drawn comparisons to the notorious black square that Instagram users posted at the height of the Movement for Black Lives protests in 2020, raising the question of whether posting it actually does much of anything to raise awareness about the situation in Rafah. Critics have wondered why instead of actual images from the Rafah and articles about the situation on the ground — or calls to contact elected officials and donate to organizations supporting Palestinians affected by the war in Gaza — an AI-generated image that will expire in 24 hours on Instagram Stories is what has moved people to post.
Performative gesture or not, pro-Palestine activists have accused Instagram of shadow-banning their posts in recent months — and the spread of the “All Eyes on Rafah” image hasn’t been stopped so far.
Andrea González-Ramírez , 2024-05-30 00:29:35
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