title: git merge "deleted by us"
body: <p>I am doing a big merge.
  A lot of files have been removed from the repo in my branch, and in doing the merge I want to keep this change for all of those files.
  There are also some files that will need explicit merging and I'm intending to use <code>git mergetool</code> to merge them.</p>
  
  <p>I wish to keep the "deleted by us" change (ie. the files should remain deleted) for all deleted files.  Other merge conflicts I want to resolve myself.<br>
  Is there a way I can tell git to keep the deleted files deleted?</p>