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The phrase ‘All Eyes on Rafah’ has gained momentum on social media throughout the last few months, urging people to pay attention to Israel ‘s ongoing conflict in Gaza . It’s once again picking up traction online, following a deadly Israeli airstrike, which killed dozens of civilians who were in a designated safe zone.
Horrifying scenes on Sunday showed a blazing hellscape following airstrikes near tents for displaced Palestinians with most of the victims being women, children and the elderly, according to local health officials. The strike, which killed 45 people, was the deadliest incident in Rafah, where many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been sheltering following displacement from devastated population centres, since the beginning of Israel’s offensive in May.
Global outrage followed, and a specific image that reads ‘All Eyes on Rafa’ has been reposted on Instagram more than 40 million times. The image, which is thought to be Artificial Intelligence ( AI ), depicts hundreds of rows of tents, alongside the capitalised phrase.
Celebrities, influencers, and athletes have also reposted the picture in an effort to draw attention to the conflict, including the likes of Bella Hadid, Nicola Coughlan, Dua Lipa, and Lewis Hamilton. The phrase seemingly originated from a comment by Rick Peeperkorn, who is the director of the World Health Organisation’s Office of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
In February, before Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza, he said ‘All eyes are on Rafah’. Since then, the saying has become a call to action and a push to encourage people not to turn their heads and instead to draw the world’s attention to what is happening. As well as the AI image being shared, people have also attached the slogan to fundraisers and other educational resources, as well as painting it onto signs at protests.
Matt Navarra, a social media consultant and industry analyst, told NBC: ‘The trend of posting ‘All Eyes on Rafah’ has been something that has been building for a little while. ‘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 activist iconography does not actually portray any real scenes of violence, meaning it has reached more people than images and videos of the conflict, as it doesn’t violate any Instagram rules. The Israeli army has since claimed that the devastating fire that killed 45 people could not have been caused by its own strikes alone but possibly a second, separate explosion.
The military claimed on Tuesday that the munitions it dropped near the camp were not enough to cause the large fires, instead suggesting an exploding weapons cache may have caused the inferno to spread. IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters that the strike was conducted against a ‘closed structure… away from the tent camp’ and claimed several Hamas officials were sheltering inside.
He said the IDF dropped two munitions with 35lb warheads. ‘These are the smallest bombs we have. Our munitions alone could not have ignited a fire of this size.’ Hagari added that the IDF is investigating the cause of the fire, including the possibility that a weapons cache apparently unknown to the Israelis was inside the compound, which could have ‘exploded and ignited the fire’.
As international pressure mounts on Israel over the horrific scenes emerging from Rafah – and as calls grow for its war in Gaza to cease – Israeli tanks reportedly reached the centre of the beleaguered city on Tuesday. Israel claimed to be continuing operations against ‘terror targets’, with tanks also stationed on the Zoroub Hill, giving Israel effective control of the corridor to the sea.
Sunday’s attack was met with international outrage as footage circulated online showing Palestinians digging through scorched debris in search of the remains of their loved ones or scraps of food. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 36,000 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
As the war grinds on, the families of hostages still held by militants have piled pressure on Netanyahu to secure a deal to free them. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel must take over Rafah to eliminate Hamas’ remaining battalions and achieve ‘total victory’ over the militants, who recently regrouped in other parts of Gaza where the military has operated.
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