Israeli Military Admits Massacre of Unarmed Gaza Protesters Was Intentional - then Deletes Tweets

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[Republished from The Real News Network.]

By Ben Norton

The Israeli military has admitted that its bloody crackdown on unarmed Palestinian protesters was "accurate and measured." The Israel Defense Forces, which shot 773 Gazans with live ammunition, likewise said, "we know where every bullet landed."

Israel's military made this admission in posts on Twitter, before promptly deleting the tweets. The Real News has archived and documented these tweets.

On Friday, March 30, tens of thousands of Gazans living under a suffocating and illegal decade-long Israeli blockade held a massive peaceful march on the Gaza border, demanding the right Palestinian refugees have under international law to return to the homeland from which Israel expelled them.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) met the march with a barrage of bullets, mowing down unarmed protesters in a massacre that immediately prompted international outrage.

More than 1,400 Palestinians were injured in the IDF's attack, according to Palestinian medical officials. Israeli soldiers shot 773 Gazan protesters with live ammunition, killing at least 16 people.

The day after the protest, on March 31, the IDF published a series of posts on its official Twitter account. The Israeli military referred to the unarmed protest as a "riot" and an "organized terrorist operation."

"Yesterday we saw 30,000 people; we arrived prepared and with precise reinforcements," the IDF tweeted. "Nothing was carried out uncontrolled; everything was accurate and measured, and we know where every bullet landed."

Soon after writing this, the IDF deleted its six-tweet thread.

The Real News documented the full deleted Twitter thread by archiving the cached version of the official IDF account.

The Israel military's admission that the massacre was intentional and pre-planned is also reflected in its actions immediately before the protest.

Israel's top general said in an interview published on March 28 -- two days before the peaceful protest, dubbed the Great Return March, was due to take place -- that the IDF had already deployed more than 100 sharpshooters on the Gaza border. The Israeli military was clearly preparing for violence.

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