What’s behind the viral AI-generated Rafah image
Following a deadly airstrike on Rafah, the image has been circulated millions of times on Instagram
An AI-generated image of tents spelling out “All Eyes on Rafah” has gone viral as people share their horror at the tragic events in the southern Gaza city.
An Israeli airstrike, targeted at Hamas commanders, is believed to have caused a blaze in a tented area for displaced people.
The photographs and videos that have emerged in the aftermath are deeply distressing.
Seeing the AI image crop up again and again online - it’s been shared more than 40 million times - I found it a little jarring that a fake picture has received such attention in place of real images of war.
The Rafah image has been compared by some to the black squares movement, which was criticised as being performative and had the effect of blocking out #BlackLivesMatter voices.
There will be several reasons for this AI image gaining so much more traction online. First of all, social media platforms often censor graphic images, leading them to not get seen or shared as widely. This image does not contain anything that is dangerous or controversial, it is a sanitised way to post to Instagram stories about the war.
Secondly, this AI image sets out a simple message combined with the geographic visual that makes it clear what it’s about within a split second of glancing at it. Thirdly, people feel like they need to show their horror at those deaths in Rafah and backing for besieged Palestinians in Gaza.
The post has made it easy to show your support with just one tap and in the face of the images that have emerged from Rafah, it feels like the right position to take for people who share it.
And what right-thinking person would not be horrified at the images of charred and dismembered children and babies being carried by grieving relatives as fires burn around them?
While critics argue the “All Eyes on Rafah” post is performative, others say it has at least got people talking about what’s happening in Gaza.
My main concern about AI-generated images becoming more commonly used in social media activism is the potential for misleading images and falsehoods diluting the facts.
Amid the, understandably, emotional reaction to this ongoing appalling tragedy there is a fog around the facts that makes social media conversation on this topic challenging.
Facts are only accepted if people like the picture they paint. If they contradict the picture they prefer in any way then they will exclude and dismiss them.
I have seen it claimed online that the mainstream media is not covering the Rafah deaths. This simply is not true. It has been widely and extensively covered and analysed by all outlets across TV and print media.
Let’s take a look at what information we have on that airstrike.
It is believed at least 45 people died and more than 240 were wounded when the camp caught fire on Sunday. The strike had been targeted at two Hamas leaders, who were also killed in the attack.
Hours earlier, Hamas fired eight rockets from Rafah towards the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu says the deaths of the civilians was a “tragic mishap” - there have been some arguments online as to whether comments were correctly translated with some news media reporting he said “mistake”.
The Israel Defence Force (IDF) has said the strike was targeted at the Hamas commanders, and shared aerial images of the buildings it was targeting. The IDF says aerial surveillance was carried out to “minimise civilian harm”.
The bomb used in the strike has been identified as a GBU-30 - designed and manufactured in the US. It has been reported that US officials have been encouraging the Israeli military to use these bombs because they are more precise and better suited to urban environments.
The bomb were dropped on buildings close to the camp for internally displaced people. Footage shows those bombs setting off deadly fires. It is thought gas cylinders or stored weapons may have triggered a second explosion leading to the fire in the tents.
Using this type of bomb is supposed to minimise civilian casualties.
Wes Bryant, a defence analyst based in the US, told the New York Times: “When you use a weapon that’s intended as precision and low collateral damage in an area where civilians are saturated, it really negates that intended use.”
Chris Cobb-Smith, an explosive weapons expert, told CNN that “using any munition, even of this size, will always incur risks in a densely populated area”.
Meanwhile John Kirby, White House spokesman, said of the strike that it did not violate US president Joe Biden’s “red line” for withholding future weapons shipments to Israel.
He said use of the smaller bomb was “certainly indicative of an effort to be discreet and targeted and precise” and that Israel has not launched a “major ground offensive” in Rafah.
Biden has made a full-scale invasion of Rafah with ground troops a red line because the southern city is where many thousands of Palestinians have fled to shelter after bombing elsewhere. Humanitarian agencies warn a ground offensive would be have devastating consequences for civilians there.
However Israel says Rafah is also home to Hamas battalions. The terror group continues to hold over 100 hostages who were taken from Israel in the brutal October 7 attack.
The Rafah strike took place days after the UN’s top court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a ruling on Israel’s offensive in the city.
The court ruled that Israel should: “Immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
This has been reported as Israel being ordered to cease military action in Rafah altogether, however was interpreted in Israel as saying the operation could continue provided civilians were protected.
The judges who voted for the ruling seem to disagree on its meaning. Judge Bogdan Aurescu from Romania said he voted for the order, but revealed that he thought the court was being “unclear” and underlined that it could not ban Israel from taking legitimate action in self-defence.
Judge Dire Tladi, from South Africa, said it told Israel “in explicit terms” to stop its offensive in Rafah.
Of course whatever the true meaning of the ruling is, it won’t stop Netanyahu from continuing on his current path.
In recent weeks, with a ceasefire deal still not coming to fruition, Biden has sounded increasingly frustrated in his statements about Netanyahu’s military approach. And Israel has become increasingly isolated internationally.
But Netanyahu shows no signs of changing strategy, and may either cross Biden’s red line eventually or continue to test it. Tanks have been seen advancing in Rafah this week.
The Palestinian civilians and those Israeli hostages and their desperate families will continue to pay the price for that.
For all the despair on social media, we remain where we were before the Rafah strike and the “All Eyes on Rafah” viral post.
Israel has vowed to keep fighting until Hamas is destroyed. Hamas believes Israel doesn’t have the right to exist.