All Eyes on Rafah: AI images, algorithmic solidarity and the politics of visibility

This article examines the artificial intelligence (AI)-generated image ‘All Eyes on Rafah’, shared over 47 million times on Instagram in May 2024 amid the humanitarian crisis in Rafah, Gaza. The image was part of a broader wave of global solidarity that included mass mobilisations, the Global Samud Flotilla and student encampments. Through qualitative case-study analysis, the article proposes the concept of algorithmic solidarity to capture the political ambivalence of such viral images. Algorithmic solidarity amplifies international attention but subordinates subaltern testimony to platform logics of visibility, content moderation and data extraction. The analysis unfolds across three levels – sociological, technological and visual – framed within postcolonial critique and the broader ecology of translocal solidarity. The article concludes that the image exemplifies a new colonial grammar of visibility: the hyper-visibility of a sanitised symbol circulates in lieu of – and potentially at the expense of – the testimonies of those who inhabit the space under siege, without negating the political potency of the solidarity movement of which it formed a part.