The viral post urges people not to look away from Rafah — but does not show a real image of the camp. Courtesy of Getty Images

By Mira Fox May 29, 2024

During the Black Lives Matter summer of protests, it felt like everyone was posting black squares to their Instagram pages. For women’s rights, people posted black-and-white photos of women. For queer rights, abortion rights, and fighting antisemitism, there have been Facebook profile photo templates.

Now, the viral template is for Gaza. 

“All eyes on Rafah,” reads an AI-generated image of endless tents in a desert, neatly arranged in rows. The image, which appears to have been created by a Singaporean-Malaysian content creator on Instagram who has made numerous shareable templates, has been shared more than 44 million times in the wake of Israel dropping munitions in a refugee camp near Rafah over the weekend. The strike ignited fires that killed 45 Palestinians sheltering there and wounded more than 240; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it “a tragic mishap.”

The post’s sentiment, and its slogan, is a common one. Without journalists and neutral observers on the ground — especially given the high civilian death toll — onlookers feel that someone needs to hold Israel accountable for its actions in the war.

And many more feel that there’s power in the act of witness: that it’s important not to look away from the horrifying images coming out of Rafah of decapitated babies and scorched bodies in order to grapple with the war fully, and keep it from becoming a detached theoretical argument.

But there’s a clear irony to a viral image urging onlookers to keep their eyes on Rafah when the image itself is not of Rafah — or of anywhere. The computer-generated image bears more resemblance to RVs parked at Burning Man than to the haphazardly assembled tents camps where Gazans have been sheltering for months. It doesn’t show the impact of the Israeli strike that is, presumably, the impetus for sharing the image. And why are there snow-capped mountains in the background?

The image is frictionless — easy to look at and easy to share. Users can add the image to their Instagram stories with a single click, enabling people to exhort others to pay attention to Rafah while expending barely any mental effort themselves.

Celebrities including Bella Hadid, Dua Lipa and Jamilla Jameel quickly hopped on the trend. An Israeli account created its own response: an AI-generated image of a child in a tunnel reading, “If your eyes are on Rafah, help us find our hostages.” That version has been shared around 53,000 times.

But many people who regularly share content about the war dismissed the “all eyes on Rafah” image. In a quick survey of my own followers on Instagram, numerous people compared it (negatively) to the black squares of 2020, calling it “performative” and noting the lack of specific information or news.

“It’s so sanitized,” said Madeleine Compagnon, who regularly takes part in Bake Sale for Palestine, a weekly fundraiser in Paris. “It says nothing — it’s totally vacuous.”

Others who post regularly in support of Gaza said that they hadn’t shared the image because they prefer to post substantive information such as articles or statistics, as well as calls to action — urging people to call their representatives, for example, or donate to GoFundMe campaigns.

Of the dozen or so people who answered my query about the image, most noted that it had appeared in their feeds from friends who don’t normally post anything about the war. Perhaps the slick AI-generated image was more palatable to those for whom the real images coming out of Rafah feel too awful — despite the hypocrisy inherent in that position, which numerous other influencers online are calling out.

“There are people who are not satisfied with the picture and template,” the creator posted on Tuesday. “I apologize if I have made a mistake.”

But perhaps the post’s blandness is its strength. Instagram and Facebook have largely censored or removed the real images coming out of Rafah as too graphic. The imaginary snow-capped desert, however, doesn’t register as, well, anything; it’s free to spread unchecked.

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