Iran’s judiciary has confirmed Israeli strikes on Tehran’s Evin prison, resulting in damage to the facility, which houses numerous political prisoners. Mizan news agency reported the situation as “under control,” while condemning the attack as a violation of international law. State media broadcast footage depicting emergency responders attending to casualties and searching for survivors amidst damaged structures.
Israel’s defense minister stated that the strikes targeted “regime targets and agencies of government repression” throughout Tehran, including Evin prison. France’s foreign minister denounced the prison attack as “unacceptable,” citing the endangerment of two French citizens imprisoned there.
Further Israeli military actions on Monday involved strikes on access routes to the Fordo uranium enrichment plant, following a US air strike on the facility the previous day utilizing bunker-busting bombs. In response, Iranian ballistic missiles targeted multiple locations within Israel, including an industrial zone near a power station in Ashdod.
These actions followed an earlier Israeli air campaign launched ten days prior, aimed at neutralizing what Israel described as the “existential threats” posed by Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. While Iran’s health ministry reported approximately 500 fatalities from Israeli strikes, a human rights organization estimated the death toll at 950. Israeli authorities reported 24 deaths resulting from Iranian missile strikes.
Evin prison’s population includes thousands of men and women, among them prominent political dissidents, human rights activists, journalists, and dual/foreign nationals. Residents near the prison reported a powerful explosion that shattered windows in nearby homes. Verified videos show damage to vehicles and structures, including the Shahid Moghaddas Prosecutor’s Office within the prison complex.
The exact casualty count remains unclear, with concerns about civilian casualties. The prosecutor’s office typically houses many visitors—inmates’ relatives, lawyers, prosecutors, and judges—during working hours. Images reviewed by BBC Persian reportedly show injured individuals who were visiting imprisoned relatives at the time of the strike.
Inmates in Evin’s women’s section informed their families of ceiling damage and resulting panic, though they reported no injuries. However, reports from Section 4 indicate injuries among men in the prison library due to the explosion’s shockwave. Amnesty International expressed “extreme distress” over the reports, emphasizing that deliberately targeting civilian objects constitutes a war crime under international humanitarian law.
France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, condemned the strike, highlighting the jeopardized safety of two French nationals held at Evin on spying charges. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a formerly imprisoned British-Iranian woman, expressed deep concern over the attack’s impact on former fellow inmates.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz stated that the Israeli military employed “unprecedented force” in Monday’s strikes on “regime targets and repressive authorities” in Tehran, including Evin prison, the Basij Resistance Force headquarters, the IRGC’s internal security headquarters, and what he termed the “ideology headquarters” and the “Israel Destruction” clock in Palestine Square. Reports indicate the clock remained undamaged.
The Israeli military also reported targeting several military command centers, including the IRGC’s “Thar-Allah” facility, and obstructing access routes to the Fordo enrichment site. President Donald Trump previously claimed that a US strike using bunker-busting bombs “obliterated” the Fordo facility. Iran countered that it had already evacuated Fordo prior to the attack.
The IAEA director general confirmed visible craters at Fordo, indicating the use of ground-penetrating munitions, suggesting significant damage to the centrifuges. He also noted additional damage at the Isfahan nuclear site from US strikes and called for IAEA access to Iranian nuclear sites to account for the country’s enriched uranium stockpile. The Israeli military stated it acted on intelligence indicating Iran’s recent progress towards producing nuclear bomb components; a claim Iran denies.
Update 23 June 2025: An earlier version of this article included a video that purported to be CCTV footage of an explosion at the Evin prison gate. The video had been run on Iranian state media and was shared by the Israeli foreign minister on social media. We initially verified the video through geolocation and recency checks, but now suspect it may have been AI-generated. The video has been removed while we work with forensic experts to further investigate its authenticity, and we have removed a reference to CCTV from the body of the article.
The US embassy in Qatar has lifted its shelter-in-place order, resuming normal operations.