In Gaza, loss under the ongoing genocide has become unbearable, and families are seeking extraordinary ways to stay close to loved ones taken by death. Amid the rubble, airstrikes, and devastation, social media has become a canvas for grief transformed: artificial intelligence is allowing the living to reunite with those they have lost, offering a fleeting sense of presence amid relentless absence.

These AI-generated images depict deceased relatives standing alongside those who mourn them, turning memory into a shared visual embrace. Hundreds of Gazans have posted personal photos alongside recreated images of their loved ones, blending pain with longing. One young man wrote, “We finally meet again, even if only in a picture,” while a girl placed a simple red heart beneath an image of herself with her late father, a quiet testament to enduring connection.

For many, these images are more than digital recreations, they are a form of resistance against erasure. A woman who posted a photo with her late husband said, “I never imagined that my consolation would be fantasy… but it has become my escape from the cruelty of absence.” Observers note that this phenomenon transforms AI from a technical tool into a humanistic medium, a way for Gazans to assert that their loved ones remain alive in memory and in the heart, resisting the reduction of life and loss to mere numbers amid the genocide.