A Married At First Sight bride has pointed out a major problem with social media influencers urging people to pay attention to Israel‘s ongoing conflict in Gaza.
Hayley Vernon, who appeared on the Channel Nine dating show in 2020, took to her social media to weigh in with her views.
‘Everyone posting all eyes on Rafah – who is actually donating, helping offering any kind of support even on an international level – posting an Instagram post isn’t doing anything. Don’t kid yourselves,’ she wrote.
The phrase ‘All Eyes on Rafah’ has gained momentum on social media throughout the last few months.
It’s once again picking up traction online, following a deadly Israeli airstrike, which killed dozens of civilians who were in a designated safe zone.
Married At First Sight bride Hayley Vernon (pictured) has pointed out a major problem with social media influencers urging people to pay attention to Israel’s ongoing conflict in Gaza
The strike, which killed 45 people, was the deadliest incident in Rafah, where many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been sheltering following displacement from devastated population centres, since the beginning of Israel’s offensive in May.
Global outrage followed, and a specific image that reads ‘All Eyes on Rafah’ has been reposted on Instagram more than 40 million times.
The image, which is thought to be Artificial Intelligence (AI), depicts hundreds of rows of tents, alongside the capitalised phrase.
‘Everyone posting all eyes on Rafah – who is actually donating, helping offering any kind of support even on an international level- posting an Instagram post isn’t doing anything. Don’t kid yourselves,’ she wrote
The phrase ‘All Eyes on Rafah’ has gained momentum on social media throughout the last few months, urging people to pay attention to Israel’s ongoing conflict in Gaza (Pictured: protestors in Paris on May 7)
Celebrities, influencers, and athletes have also reposted the picture in an effort to draw attention to the conflict, including the likes of Bella Hadid, Nicola Coughlan, Dua Lipa, and Lewis Hamilton.
The phrase seemingly originated from a comment by Rick Peeperkorn, who is the director of the World Health Organisation’s Office of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
In February, before Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza, he said ‘All eyes are on Rafah’.
A specific image that reads ‘All Eyes on Rafa’ has been reposted on Instagram more than 40 million times
Since then, the saying has become a call to action and a push to encourage people not to turn their heads and instead to draw the world’s attention to what is happening.
As well as the AI image being shared, people have also attached the slogan to fundraisers and other educational resources, as well as painting it onto signs at protests.
Matt Navarra, a social media consultant and industry analyst, told NBC: ‘The trend of posting ‘All Eyes on Rafah’ has been something that has been building for a little while.
‘We’ve seen quite a lot of influencers and celebrities and widely followed people on multiple platforms, not just Instagram, that are sharing the sentiment of this message or an almost identical version of it, which will amp up the reach and visibility across many platforms.’
Horrifying scenes show a fire raging following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians. Israel claimed its munitions were not enough to trigger such a fire
