People gather in Paris on Monday to show support for Palestinians after a deadly Israeli strike on a displacement camp in Rafah in southern Gaza.

“All Eyes on Rafah,” reads the image. The words are spelled out in rows of white tents, a backdrop of mountains in the distance.

More than 40 million Instagram users have shared this graphic to their stories using a user-generated template in recent days, according to Instagram. The viral graphic appeared after a deadly Israeli strike Sunday on a tent encampment for displaced people in Rafah in southern Gaza, which killed 45 people and elicited worldwide outrage.

Unlike other graphic imagery about the war that has gone viral, this image is likely to have been generated by artificial intelligence. Some on social media have criticized the image as replacing distressing footage of what’s actually happening in Gaza - from photographers and people on the ground - with a fake image generated by technology.

Here’s what we know about the image, and where the phrase comes from.

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What do experts say about the ‘All Eyes on Rafah’ image?

Felix M. Simon, a communication researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute, said he was “confident” that the viral image “was generated with the help of AI,” noting that the image “bears various visual hallmarks that are typical for AI systems - especially a certain blurriness.”

In reality, there are no cleanly cut rows of tents or a sloping snow-topped mountain near Rafah’s encampments. Tents sit among fields and buildings, and the area is dotted with palm trees and the occasional sandy hill. Footage from the deadly Sunday night strike showed a very different Rafah from that depicted in the viral image: red flames tearing through fabric, bodies charred beyond recognition, a man carrying a headless child.

Simon noted that if the image were real, other images depicting the same scene would be available, given the size of the depicted camp and the international focus on it.

Instagram credits a user named “shahv4012” as the first person to use the image in an Instagram story template. The user did not immediately respond to overnight requests for comment from The Washington Post.

Rafah, now a focal point in the war between Israel and Hamas, had become a last refuge for about 1 million Palestinians fleeing the fighting elsewhere. Israel ramped up ground and aerial operations in the area in early May, leaving those displaced there with nowhere to go, activists say. As countries and human rights organizations urge for a halt in fighting and strikes on Rafah, the Israel Defense Forces has this week expanded operations, pushing deeper into the area it says is central to Hamas operations - despite an order by the International Court of Justice for Israel to halt military operations there.

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Why might people share an AI-generated image of Rafah?

Many on social media criticized the image as being an overly rosy depiction of a displacement area compared with the actual graphic footage coming from the scene - and that sharing it to raise awareness was “performative.”

Matt Navarra, a social media consultant, said Wednesday that the post’s uncontroversial nature may be what is driving the image’s massive reach.

“It doesn’t depict real-world violence. Although it feels sanitized, that is what has enabled it to have the level of viral reach that is has received so far,” said Navarra, adding that Instagram has not yet labeled the image to let users know it was produced using AI.

“People like to feel that they can help influence those that have power and authority to bring about change,” Navarra said. “Being part of a movement, even at the lowest level of engagement, people feel they have contributed in some small way towards a bigger cause.”

He added people may also share the image because it drives awareness on the issue, and media headlines, which can bring about change.

Sima Ajlyakin, a Cairo-based photographer, shared the photo on her Instagram account before deleting it, after questioning what posting the image would achieve. It is the real, gutting photographs that enable those outside Gaza to witness what is happening inside, she said.

“At the end of the day, the photojournalists and the photographers that are on the ground, covering this, covering the atrocities that are happening for the whole world to see, especially on social media, these at the end of the day are the ones that raise so many alarms,” she said. “They’re the ones that raise all this worldwide anger. … What does AI prove?”

She gave the example of another image that was widely shared from Sunday’s attack: a video of a headless child, carried from under the armpits by a man standing outside a burning tent. This single image, Ajlyakin said, was especially powerful, even if it was not as widely shared on social media.

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How do social media companies treat AI-generated images?

Earlier this year, Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, announced it would begin work to detect and label AI-generated images posted to its platforms. In April, the company said it would work to provide “transparency” and that it planned to start labeling AI-generated content in May. Instagram did not immediately return an early Wednesday request for comment for this story.

Simon noted that while generative AI tools “certainly make it easier” for people online to create custom-made images for specific topics or causes, traditional tools like Photoshop have also been and are widely used to do the same.

Where does the phrase ‘All Eyes on Rafah’ come from?

Richard Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization’s representative in the West Bank and Gaza, said in February that “all eyes are on Rafah,” referring to the Israeli plan to launch a military incursion into the city. An Israeli military offensive there would be an “unfathomable catastrophe, further expanding the humanitarian disaster beyond all imagination,” he said.

It has since become a rallying cry for many organizations trying to amplify awareness of the living conditions in southern Gaza: Save the Children and Oxfam have both used the slogan, and Jewish Voice for Peace posted the message on X hours after the Sunday strike.

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Actor Rachel Zegler Condemns AI-Generated ‘All Eyes On Rafah’ Post

Actor Rachel Zegler condemned the AI-generated “All Eyes on Rafah” post that has been circulating on social media this week, echoing the criticisms of pro-Palestinian activists who have labeled the post performative.

In a message on social media on Wednesday, the “Hunger Games” star criticized those who were sharing the viral graphic, stating that it fails to provide information or context about what is happening to people in Gaza.

The post, which experts say was created by artificial intelligence (AI), depicts artwork of a landscape and mountain with the words “All Eyes on Rafah,” a phrase used to draw attention to Israel’s bombardment Sunday of camps for displaced people in Rafah, killing dozens of Palestinians sheltering in tents. At least 40 million people reshared the post on Instagram as of Wednesday.

“I genuinely find it disturbing that the only way so many people have suddenly felt comfortable sharing their support for palestinian lives is via an Al-generated image that doesn’t even begin to touch upon the actual horrors of what these human beings are experiencing,” Zegler wrote on her Instagram story.

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Zegler, a Colombian American performer and Oscar nominee for “West Side Story,” added that there are numerous GoFundMe appeals, infographics or even other pieces of art that would have had been more effective posts to support the Palestinians in Gaza than “what the internet has decided is its ‘trendy’ version of showing up for a population that has been (publicly) massacred.”

Others online echoed her criticisms, pointing to celebrities and influencers who shared the image after being largely quiet about the attacks in Gaza over the past eight months.

“We have had real accounts and images for the past eight months about this genocide very well documented, and you’re choosing AI?” a user named Yeganeh said in an Instagram reel on Tuesday.

On Oct. 7, the militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing an estimated 1,200 people and taking about 240 people hostage. Since then, Israel’s offensive has killed an estimated 35,000 people in Gaza, displaced most of the population and caused what the United Nations has called a “full-blown famine.”

Following the Sunday bombardment, which has drawn international outrage, Israel has continued to strike at tent camps sheltering Palestinians who have been displaced several times to so-called safe zones, and the Israel Defense Forces killed at least 37 Palestinians overnight Monday and on Tuesday. Horrifying videos of the aftermath of the attacks this week, including one of a man carrying the body of a beheaded child, were captured by journalists and witnesses in Rafah.

Humanitarian experts and others online have described the AI post as a sanitized and uncontroversial image that doesn’t depict real-world violence, which may have driven its spread online, according to The Washington Post.

Many have drawn parallels to the black squares that were posted on social media during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. The squares were meant to represent support for the movement, but the images drew criticism because they didn’t provide any context or useful resources on racial inequity and police brutality, and their proliferation pushed those valuable tools out of people’s social media feed. The surge of black squares, as well as the “All Eyes on Rafah” graphic, were criticized as performative activism: done out of a desire to make a person look better rather than to help the cause.

“I think it’s precisely the lack of context that makes this image politically safe for liberals to signal their ‘concern’ for Gaza,” one user wrote in X about the “All Eyes on Rafah” post. “Palestine is not named. Zionism is not named. It conveys urgency and awareness without naming the historical actors that have produced this genocide.”

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Why the ‘All Eyes on Rafah' is Going Viral on Social Media

Nearly 45 million Instagram users—including celebrities like Bella Hadid and Nicola Coughlan—have shared an AI-generated image depicting tent camps for displaced Palestinians and a slogan that reads “all eyes on Rafah,” according to a Wednesday afternoon count by Instagram.

The sharing of the post comes amid criticism from the international community regarding Rafah, which rests on the southern Gaza Strip near the Egyptian border, and has been the subject of intense bombing by Israeli troops. Military strikes set shelters on fire, causing Palestinians to dig through charred remains hoping to rescue survivors. At least 45 Palestinians have been killed thus far. Rafah was previously deemed a humanitarian zone for civilians.

Sarah Jackson, an associate professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, tells TIME that the origins of internet activism date back to the ‘90s, when leaders behind the Zapatista uprising circulated information about what was happening on the ground. But currently, Instagram appeals to activists as a platform for social change because of the visual aspect of the app, allowing users to share both videos and photos.

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“One of the really important things that we have to acknowledge is that a lot of Palestinian journalists have been using Instagram to share from the ground what has been happening. We know that a lot of those journalists have been directly targeted and censored because of that, but this has been a platform that has been popular with them,” Jackson says.

Jackson points out that many social media activists may have been struggling to share images from Gaza due to algorithmic guidelines that hide graphic content. Instagram says that while it understands why people share this sort of content in certain instances, it encourages people to caption the photo with warnings about graphic violence, per its community guidelines.

Users may have found a workaround by sharing an AI image. “Many of the images that are coming from the ground are really graphic and gruesome,” she says. “It has been harder and harder for people to actually document what's happening…and when compelling images are documented, they are often censored at the platform level…it makes sense that folks would turn to AI.”

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Instagram user @ shahv4012 first shared the “all eyes on Rafah” post on their story. Some have criticized the use of AI for the photo. “There are people who are not satisfied with the picture and template, I apologize if I have made a mistake on all of you,” the user said in an Instagram story. “Whatever [you do], don’t look down on the Rafah issue now, spread it so that they are shaken and afraid of the spread of all of us.”

The slogan on the image likely was inspired by Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for Gaza, who previously said that “all eyes” were on what is happening in Rafah.

While some have pointed out that sharing the AI image does not necessarily mean a user is fully educated on what is happening in Rafah, Jackson says that if the point is to spread awareness, and share that someone is “part of a collective that cares about this issue,” then posting the photo on their story is worthwhile.

Israel’s decision to launch its military offensive into Rafah came two days after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to stop its planned assault on Rafah, and has been largely criticized by world leaders.

French President Emmanuel Macron said that he was “outraged” by the Israeli strikes in Rafah. “These operations must stop. There are no safe areas in Rafah for Palestinian civilians. I call for full respect for international law and an immediate ceasefire,” Macron shared on X on Monday. U.N. Secretary General António Guterres reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire, and for the ICJ order to be complied with.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the deaths “tragic.” More than 36,000 Palestinians and some 1,500 Israelis have been killed since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

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