What is ‘All eyes on Rafah’, why is it trending on social media?

The phrase ‘All eyes on Rafah’ has been trending on social media including in posts of celebrities and activists, in the wake of Israel’s attack on Gaza’s Rafah on Sunday (May 26) in which over 45 people including children were killed and 200 were injured.

About the attack

The strike targeted the Tal as-Sultan area, a designated “safe zone” situated northwest of Rafah city where thousands of displaced Palestinians have taken refuge in tents. Media reports said the area on Sunday was hit by at least eight Israeli missiles, which caused a massive fire and set several tents ablaze.

The strike has invited widespread outrage from the international community including human rights groups and some of Israel’s closest allies.

Also watch: Israel’s attack on Gaza: The endgame is in sight

Israel went ahead with the attack even though the International Court of Justice (ICJ) had ordered it to “immediately halt its military offensive in Rafah”.

Israel’s attack came after Hamas sent rockets to Tel Aviv, most of which were intercepted.

What is ‘All eyes on Rafah’?

Soon after the attack, the phrase ‘All eyes on Rafah’ began trending on social media as a slogan to rally support for Palestinians caught in the war between Israel and Hamas.

Over the past couple of days, social media has been awash with photographs of charred bodies - some of them without heads - blazing tents, and children crying while watching their parents burn, in Rafah’s Tal as-Sultan area.

Also trending is an image, which appears like an arrangement of tents to form the phrase ‘All eyes on Rafah’. It is becoming a symbol of the mass genocide happening in Palestine.

It is, however, suspected that the image is not real and is generated through Artificial Intelligence.

“Not looking very real, having odd shadows, and the tent camp being unnaturally symmetrical are some of the signs that it’s an AI-generated image,” Marc Owens, a researcher on misinformation in media, told NBC.

The phrase is said to be first used by Rick Peeperkorn, the director of World Health Organisation’s Office of the Occupied Palestinian Territories in February, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered an evacuation plan for Rafah ahead of attacks on what he said were the last strongholds of Hamas.

Human rights activists, celebs use slogan

The slogan tries to rally support for over 1.4 million Palestinians who have been running from one place to another in search of safe refuge, scrambling for scraps and struggling for basic human needs, since the war broke out and displaced them from their homes.

Several humanitarian groups including Oxfam, Americans for Justice in Palestine, Save the Children, Jewish Voice for Peace and Palestine Solidarity Campaign have used the phrase to condemn the attacks on Rafah, considered the last safe place in Gaza Strip, by Israel despite the presence of thousands of displaced Palestinians in the region.

The #AllEyesOnRafah hashtag has been used in over 2 lakh posts on social media while the viral image of tents carrying the slogan has been shared over 29 million times on Instagram in a span of just 24 hours.

Several Indian celebrities including Madhuri Dixit, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Tripti Dimri and Varun Dhawan have used the ‘All Eyes on Rafah’ image in their Instagram stories to show solidarity with Palestinians.

Why is Rafah crucial?

Rafah, which was the main entry point for humanitarian aid to Gaza Strip, has no longer been safe for civilians after Israel took control of the crossing and launched attacks on the Gaza side of the border earlier this month.

Around 1 million Palestinians, who were displaced in the war and had sought refuge in Rafah, had to flee due to the fresh onslaught by Israel. They now seek refuge in squalid tent camps and other war-ravaged areas.

From the exodus the assault has caused, satellite photos show dense new tent camps running the length of the coast from just north of Rafah to outside Deir al-Balah. The ramshackle tents and shelters are densely packed in mazes of corrugated metal and plastic sheets, blankets and bedsheets draped over wooden sticks for privacy.

The US and other allies of Israel have warned against a full-fledged offensive in the city, with the Joe Biden administration saying that would cross a red line and refusing to provide offensive arms for such an undertaking.

Netanyahu, however, has vowed to press ahead, saying Israeli forces must enter Rafah to dismantle Hamas and return hostages taken in the October 7 attack that triggered the war.

Israel claims during the October 7 attacks Hamas militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted around 250 others from southern Israel. Israel's campaign in Gaza triggered by the attack has killed some 36,000 people, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

Aid groups have warned for months that an attack on Rafah will worsen Gaza's humanitarian disaster. So far, Israel's operations have been short of its planned all-out invasion, though fighting has expanded over the past three weeks from the eastern parts of Rafah to central districts of the city.

Israel says it is carrying out limited operations in eastern Rafah along the Gaza-Egypt border. But residents reported heavy bombardment overnight in Tel al-Sultan.

What is Israel’s reaction to Sunday’s offensive?

The Israeli military claims an initial investigation into the strike that sparked the fire in the tent camp in Tal as-Sultan area was caused by a secondary explosion.

Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, the chief military spokesman, said on Tuesday (May 28) that the military fired two 17 kg (37-pound) munitions that targeted two senior Hamas militants. He said the munitions would have been too small to ignite a fire on their own and the military is looking into the possibility that weapons were stored in the area.

It is suspected that the fire that broke out in the camp could have ignited fuel, cooking gas canisters or other materials in the densely populated area.

As the strike invited widespread outrage, Prime Minister Netanyahu said it was the result of a “tragic mishap”.

Meanwhile, it was reported on Tuesday that new strikes in the same area have killed at least 16 Palestinians. Residents also reported an escalation of fighting in the southern Gaza city once seen as the territory's last refuge.