All Eyes on Rafah: Widely shared image seeks to draw attention to Rafah

Following a deadly airstrike by Israel on Sunday, people on social media came out in support of Palestine, seeking attention to what’s happening in Rafah.

An image reading “All Eyes on Rafah” has got 29 million shares on social media within just 24 hours. The attack has triggered support for Palestine from all over the world.

The Image that is being highly shared on social media shows tents in a camp arranged to spell out “All Eyes on Rafah,” Rafah is an area in south Gaza occupied by refugees and even the Israel government has previously labelled it as a safe zone, but on Sunday things horribly changed after the air strike where more than 45 civilians lost their life.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, mentioned the casualties as a “tragic mishap” to the country’s parliament in Hebrew, The comments circulated by his office translated the phrase “tragic incident.”

Instagram has become a campaigning platform in recent times promoting support for Palestine and becoming an outlet for Palestine journalists. Meta owner, however, has tried to limit the spread of political content on the platform.

What the image depicts?

As disturbing visuals of charred bodies and severe injuries surfaced on social media, an image bearing the text “All Eyes on Rafah” gained traction. This campaign, led by activists and humanitarian groups, seeks to spotlight the dire conditions in the southern Gaza Strip city, where residents endure cramped refugee camps without humanitarian assistance.

Depicting tents arranged to spell out the message, the image implores viewers not to ignore the plight of the approximately 1.5 million people seeking refuge in Rafah after fleeing Israeli airstrikes.

Is the image genuine?

The image in question could be among the earliest examples of AI-generated viral activism visuals. Marc Owen Jones, a misinformation researcher, suggests that the image appears to have been generated by AI. NBC reported that the image’s artificial nature is evident from its unnatural appearance, including peculiar shadows and unnaturally symmetrical tent arrangements.

Despite the image getting millions of shares, the videos of the incident posted by several Palestinian journalists have been restricted and some even removed from social media for showing the graphic aftermath of Israeli strikes. Two of the three Instagram posts showing the situation of Rafah with injured and burned dead bodies was removed by Instagram and the third one comes with a sensitive content warning for “graphic or violent content”, as reported by NBC News.

According to an Instagram spokesperson, the content is removed due to its violent and graphic nature, which violates the platform’s policies.

“The trend of posting ‘All Eyes on Rafah’ has been something that has been building for a little while,” said Matt Navarra, a social media consultant and industry analyst. “We’ve seen quite a lot of influencers and celebrities and widely followed people on multiple platforms, not just Instagram, that are sharing the sentiment of this message or an almost identical version of it, which will amp up the reach and visibility across many platforms.”

The image seems to be one of the first examples of viral activist iconography created using artificial intelligence. Marc Owen Jones, an associate professor of Middle East studies at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar who studies misinformation, said the image “definitely looks” AI-generated.

There are several signs like lack of photorealism, the presence of unusual shadows, and the unnaturally sprawling and symmetrical layout of the tent camp, which suggests that the photo is not real but AI-generated.

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