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Israel Massacres Unarmed Gaza Protesters, Shooting 773 with Live Ammunition</h1>
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<font style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 21.84px; line-height: 28.392px;" class=""><b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 21.84px;" class=""><span style="font-size: 16.8px;" class="">The
Israeli military brutally crushed a protest on the Gaza border led by tens of thousands of Palestinians, killing 16 and injuring 1,400. Journalist Max Blumenthal speaks of Israel's suffocating blockade of the strip and the biased media reporting on the "Great
Return March."</span>Ben Norton</b> is a producer and reporter for The Real News. His work focuses primarily on U.S. foreign policy, the Middle East, media criticism, and movements for economic and social justice. <a href="https://bennorton.com/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: none; font-size: 21.84px; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(163, 80, 79);" class="">Ben
Norton</a> was previously a staff writer at Salon and AlterNet. You can find him on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/benjaminnorton" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: none; font-size: 21.84px; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(163, 80, 79);" class="">@BenjaminNorton</a>.</font></p>
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<font style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 21.84px; line-height: 28.392px;" class=""><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 21.84px;" class="">Max Blumenthal</strong> is an award-winning
journalist and bestselling author whose articles and video documentaries have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, The Nation, The Guardian, The Independent Film Channel, The Huffington Post, <a href="http://salon.com/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: none; font-size: 21.84px; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(163, 80, 79);" class="">Salon.com</a>,
Al Jazeera English and many other publications. His most recent book is Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel. His other book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Republican-Gomorrah-Inside-Movement-Shattered/dp/1568583982" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: none; font-size: 21.84px; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(163, 80, 79);" class="">Republican
Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party</a>, is a New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller. Max is co-host of the podcast Moderate Rebels.</font></p>
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<span class="h2_background" style="margin: 0px; padding: 5px 10px; border-width: thin 0px 0px; outline: 0px; background-color: rgb(65, 65, 65);">transcript</span></h2>
<img src="http://therealnews.com/media/trn_2018-03-01/bnorton0331gazareport-240.jpg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 10px double rgb(255, 255, 255); outline: 0px; font-size: 16.8px; font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: left;" class=""><font style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 21.84px; font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 28.392px;" class="">BEN
NORTON: Tens of thousands of Palestinians living under a suffocating Israeli blockade in Gaza organized a massive peaceful march on the border with Israel. And they were met with a sea of bullets.
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Israel crushed the historic protest with extreme violence, mowing down the unarmed protesters. More than 1,400 Palestinians were injured. The Israeli military deployed more than 100 snipers, who shot 773 protesters with live ammunition. At least 16 Gazans were
killed in the massacre.
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Israel's military later openly admitted that the massacre had been intentional and pre-planned. The IDF wrote on Twitter, "everything was accurate and measured, and we know where every bullet landed." Soon after, it deleted these tweets.
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The demonstration, which was dubbed the "Great Return March," had been organized for months, in order to demand the right Palestinian refugees have under international law to return to their homes, which Israel ethnically cleansed in 1948.
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The protesters also condemned Israel's decade-long blockade of the Gaza Strip, which United Nations experts have explicitly said is illegal.
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Because of this smothering siege, 1.8 million Palestinians are trapped inside Gaza with little water, food, and electricity. Even the United Kingdom's Conservative former Prime Minister David Cameron has described the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip as a "prison
camp" and "open-air prison."
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The Real News spoke about the historic protest with journalist Max Blumenthal, who recently reported from on the ground in Gaza.</font>
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