It is certain that armed gangs were activated and many people (up to a couple thousand) were killed in chaotic riots. There's video evidence of armed gangs in the streets.

The idea that tens of thousands of peaceful protestors were killed solely by the government, the same government that was decapitated just weeks later by a foreign war of aggression, and yet not a hint of mass uprising afterwards? Utterly preposterous, and I would be embarrassed to even entertain that narrative.

It's so obviously part of a cynical propaganda campaign to justify the actual unilateral mass murder of civilians by the Trump and Netanyahu regimes.