Editorial: Eyes wide shut

ISRAEL: Earlier this week, cricketer Rohit Sharma’s wife, Ritika Sajdeh had posted an Instagram story in solidarity with the people of Palestine, resharing an AI-generated image titled ‘All Eyes on Rafah’, which has now become a catchphrase on social media. The image was shared in the aftermath of a deadly Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Sunday, which killed over 45 people, around half of them women and children. Sajdeh was brutally trolled by netizens, who lambasted her for selective amnesia vis-a-vis issues endemic to India, and for ignoring the horrors perpetrated by Hamas during the October 7 attacks.

While Sajdeh took down her post, the episode was a reminder of how social media is being weaponised in the backdrop of a war. What we also witnessed is the phenomenon of performative activism, which social media users rely on to express their support for one side or the other. The war in Gaza has prompted the creation of numerous visual narratives that are being championed by each side, with no regard for fact checking.

A case in point is the ‘All Eyes on Rafah’ viral image which depicts an aerial view of a refugee camp and the lettering made of the likeness of tents. Back in 2020, people across the globe had begun posting blank black squares with hashtags to show their solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Unfortunately, these blank images ended up clogging critical channels of information and community updates. A development that was also witnessed in the days following Israel declaration of war on Hamas was the turn-based release of videos depicting atrocities, carried out by both members of the Israeli armed forces, as well as Hamas militants.

The news agency AP recently released a few takeaways pertaining to its examination of credible evidence presented by the the UN and other groups that suggested that Hamas militants committed sexual assault during their Oct 7 rampage. The agency refers to two debunked testimonies from volunteers with the Israeli search and rescue organization ZAKA, whose accounts had helped fuel a global clash over whether sexual violence occurred during the attack and on what scale.

The agency found that ZAKA’s usual media protocols were bypassed, and volunteers who typically would be vetted by a spokesperson before being interviewed spoke to journalists directly, drawing conclusions about what they saw, even though the group acknowledged that its volunteers are not forensics workers. It was a reminder of how information can be clouded and distorted in the chaos of the conflict.

Concurrently, a group representing the families of hostages held in Gaza released a video depicting Hamas’s capture of five female Israeli soldiers near the Gaza border. The footage, which shows several bloodied young soldiers, was taken by Hamas militants who stormed the Nahal Oz military base. This video was in turn countered by footage from last Sunday’s attack on the refugee camp, which showcased a Palestinian man wailing over the headless corpse of a child. As things stand, the White House said it is not planning any policy changes as a result of the Israeli actions. An Israeli official said the war in Gaza might persist until the year’s end, casting aspersions on the hopes that the fighting would cease after the military operation in Rafah. The complicity of the West in the continuation of the war will only vindicate the words of Bertrand Russell, “War doesn't determine who's right  only who is left.”