Published On 29 May 2024
|Updated: 30 May 2024 11:02 AM (GMT)
An AI generated image with the text ‘All eyes on Rafah’ has been re-shared over 46 million times amid Israel’s attacks on Gaza’s Rafah.
‘All eyes on Rafah’ AI-image goes viral on social media
An image with the text “All eyes on Rafah” is on every other Instagram story, dominating social media discourse on Israel’s war on Gaza.
Here’s more about the trend and the image, which has been re-shared on more than 46 million Instagram stories since Monday, a day after Israel’s deadly offensive on Gaza’s Rafah.
On Sunday, two days after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to halt its offensive on Rafah, Israeli bombardment killed at least 45 people in al-Mawasi in western Rafah, which was previously declared a safe zone.
Another Israeli attack killed 21 in a displacement camp west of Rafah on Tuesday, at least 12 of those killed were women. Air attacks were reported on Wednesday morning.
Israel has killed at least 36,171 people in Gaza since October 7, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
Here’s what Rafah looked like on Monday:
Here’s an image of Rafah from Tuesday:
The image is being reposted on Instagram stories by users globally.
As of 11:30 GMT on Thursday, it has been reposted on 46.6 million Instagram stories. These include the accounts of:
The first Instagram story using it was posted on Monday by user @shahv4012. Al Jazeera could not confirm whether this user created the image. But the user has commented on their Instagram stories “that they apologise if many people were not ‘satisfied’ with the picture and to keep urgently spreading the word to stop what is happening in Rafah,” Kawash said.
Besides Instagram, the image has also been re-shared on X.
The image has caught more attention than many photos of Rafah or Gaza.
This could be because the image is being shared using Instagram’s “Add Yours” feature, which allows users to repost it in seconds without having to search for images.
Precisely because the image is AI-generated, it appears to have escaped any censorship based on keywords, helping with its explosive spread. “The AI-generated template seems to have passed keyword detection or text-based censorship,” Kawash said.
It is also an easy way for celebrities and influencers to talk about a war many of them have not spoken about previously, she said.
But there could be another reason, too, some experts said: The AI image might be more palatable to some viewers than real photos of Gaza, which are graphic and often show blood, dead bodies and violence.
“I believe the virality of this image is largely due to its stark contrast with the predominant visual imagery of the war … To humanise the victims in Gaza and Rafah, social media users often share vivid images of casualties and mourning family members,” Eddy Borges-Rey, associate professor in residence at Northwestern University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera.
“This might explain why algorithms on platforms like Meta [Facebook and Instagram], designed to filter graphic violence, did not flag this image. Unlike real, graphic images of the war, which might be restricted or removed due to content policies, this AI-generated image could spread more freely, contributing to its rapid virality,” said Borges-Rey.
While several social media users have celebrated the virality of the image, many others have been angered by it.
Those critical of the post deem re-sharing it as performative activism that distracts from real images and important updates from Rafah.
“The image undermines Palestinian testimony and lived experience. It portrays an AI-generated scene with digital tents arranged into readable text across a vast expanse with snow-covered mountains in the background — a far cry from Gaza,” said Kawash.
“This AI-generated image has caused controversy because Palestinians have for decades asked the world to see them and believe them. Palestinian lived experiences and testimony have been systematically undermined and gas-lit by Israeli hasbara,” she said, referring to Israel’s public diplomacy efforts that use carefully crafted propaganda narratives.
“With so many Palestinian citizen journalists in Gaza risking their lives to document their realities on the ground, the AI-generated image can seem like another form of digital erasure.”
Some have suggested what else to post instead of re-sharing the AI-generated image.
That, said Kawash, is the big question, as Israel’s assaults on Rafah intensify. On the one hand, she said, the virality of the AI image helps shine a global light on the crisis in the southern Gaza city.
“However, this messaging falls short — as many Palestinians and advocates have noted, ‘All eyes are on Rafah – and now what?’” she said. “The messaging should include calls for an immediate ceasefire, yet that has not worked so far, so it should also include demands for governments to sanction Israel now.”
More broadly, she said, the explosive spread of the image points both to how AI can help spread the Palestinian narrative — by evading some censorship efforts — and its limitations.
“I would encourage users and consumers of AI-generated images, to consider how these AI-generated images are aestheticising and normalising scenes of horrific violence against Palestinians, and rendering them more digestible and safe,” Kawash said.