All eyes on Rafa

Rafa: Over the past two days, the internet has been taken over by a seemingly AI-generated image that reads ‘All Eyes on Rafah’. The image went viral as people from around the world took to social media to express support for Palestinians in Rafah, a city located in Gaza. Israeli airstrikes on Sunday killed around 45 people who had taken refuge in camps in Rafah. The Iranian embassy in India took to Twitter to explain the viral image, claiming, “‘All Eyes on Rafah’ is a phrase that refers to the ongoing massacre in Rafah, Gaza, where more than 1.4 million Palestinians are seeking shelter.”

The seemingly AI-generated post shows tents arranged in a structure to spell out the slogan. The post is being widely shared on social media platforms. Bollywood celebrities including Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor, Varun Dhawan, Priyanka Chopra, Rashmika Mandanna, Sonakshi Sinha, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Tripati Dimri, Dia Mirza and Richa Chadha posted the image on their Instagram stories expressing their solidarity with the Palestinians.The said image, which draws attention to the killings in Rafah, does not highlight the violence that is taking place daily.

The attack on Rafah comes despite global outrage and an International Court of Justice (ICJ) order demanding Israel to halt military operations in the region. Israeli airstrikes on Gaza that began after October 7 last year have killed more than 35,000 people, mainly women and children. More than one million Gazans live in the Palestinian city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip bordering Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Israel launched an airstrike on Sunday after Hamas fired a barrage of rockets at the Tel Aviv area, most of which were intercepted. The United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) has been constantly expressing the horror of the ongoing war that is causing civilians distress.

On May 28, UNRWA posted, “This is just one of hundreds of attacks and assaults we have seen over the past months. Palestinian families in the #GazaStrip continue to live in fear and death, @UNRWA’s Sam Rose tells @cnn. If there is no #Ceasefire now – the number of such attacks killing civilians will increase even more.” The post reads, “There is no such thing as a safe place in #Gaza. Nowhere and no one is safe. Every day, more civilians are dying and families are forced to live in increasingly unbearable conditions.” Following the attack, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday called the country’s assault on the camp a “tragic mistake.” Israel’s military claimed it had carried out a precision airstrike aimed at killing two senior Hamas militants. When the attack erupted in flames, the military said it had launched an investigation.