Rafah in the Spotlight: A Post Shared by Over 47 Million People

 Social media sites, especially Instagram, are sweeping through an image of solidarity with the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, with millions of people and celebrities around the world interacting with it after dozens of Palestinians were killed and injured in the past two days, in an Israeli bombing of the displaced persons’ tents northwest of Rafah. 

The attack received widespread reactions, as many leaders, heads of state and international organizations expressed their condemnation and sadness at the scenes of the bombing of tents. At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the air strike on the Rafah camp was a “tragic mistake,” confirming the formation of an investigation into the incident. 

Over two days, the Instagram platform witnessed interaction with an emoji reading “All eyes on Rafah” in Arabic, as the spread of the image at the time of writing the report had reached more than 41 million people, with posts increasing every hour. 

Where did the slogan “All eyes on Rafah” begin to be used? The Israeli attack on the tents of the displaced in Rafah renewed interaction with a statement made by the representative of the World Health Organization in the occupied Palestinian territories, Rick Pepperkorn, last February, when he said in an interview with a group of journalists that “all eyes are on Rafah.” He was then warned of an attack. Israeli in Rafah. 

Berkun spoke from the Gaza Strip via an online call with journalists at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, that he fears a humanitarian catastrophe “beyond imaginable” if a large-scale incursion by the Israeli army takes place in Rafah, south of Gaza.

Media reports indicate that officials and activists have been repeating Berkun’s phrase since then to express their concern and denounce the launch of a military operation in Rafah. In the months that followed, popular events carried the slogan “All Eyes on Rafah” to express their solidarity with the city that receives more than one and a half million refugees from Gaza. 

Perhaps the most notable was when an Irish singer composed a song entitled “All Eyes on Rafah.” It calls on politicians to stop any attacks on the city. Protesters also protested solidarity in various cities, raising the same slogan.

How did the photo spread across social media in the past two days? 

After the attack on the tents of the displaced in Rafah, a young Malaysian man shared an image designed with artificial intelligence on his Instagram account. In it, he used the phrase that became famous in the previous period in solidarity with the city of Rafah. The image was widely shared, with more than 40 million shares, by celebrities and actors, most notably pop singer Ricky Martin, Turkish actress Tuba Buyuk Ustun, Indian actress Priyanka Chopra, and Syrian actress Kinda Alloush. 

E-marketing and artificial intelligence consultant Maher Al-Nimri confirms that the image was entirely designed using artificial intelligence, as it does not express an actual image of the city of Rafah. Instead, it shows a vast desert on which large numbers of tents are erected, forming the phrase “All Eyes on Rafah.” 

The image also does not contain any scenes of blood, shots of real people, names, or sensitive scenes, all of which are reasons that Al-Nimri believes helped it spread more widely without any restrictions that conflict with the standards for using Instagram.