All Eyes On Rafah

About

All Eyes On Rafah is a slogan and catchphrase used by pro-Palestinian demonstrators to bring awareness to the war in the Palestinian city in the southern Gaza Strip, particularly following an Israeli strike in the Gazan city amid the Israel-Hamas Conflict. In late May 2024 an AI-generated image showing a field of refugee tents spelling out “All Eyes on Rafah” was widely spread on Instagram, Facebook and X / Twitter.

Origin

The "All eyes on Rafah" slogan was created on February 14th, 2024, by Rik Peeperkorn, who heads the World Health Organization’s office for Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Peeperkorn^[1][2] was speaking at a news conference as the Israeli military intensified its campaign in Rafah, the Palestinian city in the southern Gaza Strip, prompting him to say the quote “all eyes are on Rafah” to describe the feared large-scale offensive.

Also on February 14th, the YouTube news channel @MEMonitor^[3] uploaded a video explaining the story behind the slogan, why Rafah was being targeted and what it called "Israel's brutal evacuation plan." The video (shown below) received roughly 1,000 views and 14 likes in four months.

Spread

The catchphrase was popularized among pro-Palestinian demonstrators on social media over the following months, especially after the Israeli^[4] strikes that killed at least 45 Palestinians, including many children, in tents full of displaced people in Gaza's Rafah on May 27th, 2024.

On the same day, Instagram user @shahv4012^[8] posted an AI-generated image (shown below, left) showing tents at a camp arranged to form the words "All Eyes on Rafah" to spread awareness of the situation in Gaza's southernmost city, which received more than 886,000 shares in two days. X^[5] user @InsiderWorld_1 then reposted the image (shown below, right) on May 27th, amassing over 7 million views and 353,000 likes in two days.

On May 28th, 2024, TikTok^[6] user @anil_lobo showed his Instagram Stories feed repeatedly showing the "All Eyes on Rafah" AI image (seen below, left), captioning the post, "I'm not someone in the right position or in power to speak about what's happening right in front of us, but Social Media has the power to let the world know what is actually going on in Rafah." The post amassed more than 8 million plays and 1 million likes in a day.

On May 29th, TikTok^[7] influencer @blondejeff shared his opinion about the AI image circulating on social media (seen below, right), which received roughly 25,000 plays and 1,300 likes in a few hours.

On May 31st, 2024, 404 Media^[9] news website reported that the "All Eyes on Rafah" image came from a Facebook^[10] group to "make AI industry prosper." The original image (seen below) was posted by Zila AbKa on February 14th, 2024, amassing over 7,000 likes and 46,000 shares in five months.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References