Iran releases death toll of Israel’s Evin prison attack as officials remain suspicious of ceasefire

Dubai: Dozens of staff members, two inmates and a bystander were the casualties of Israel’s attack last week on Tehran’s Evin prison, a notorious facility where many political prisoners and dissidents have been held.

The death toll of the strike was released Sunday by Iran’s judiciary and confirmed by human rights groups as the one-week mark of the ceasefire between Israel and Iran approaches, despite suspicions from both sides of whether the truce will hold.

Judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir posted on the office’s official Mizan news agency website that at least 71 people were killed on Monday, including staff, soldiers, prisoners and members of visiting families.

While officials did not provide a breakdown of the casualty figures, the Washington-based Human Rights Activists in Iran said that at least 35 were staff members and two were inmates. Others killed included a person walking in the prison vicinity and a woman who went to meet a judge about her imprisoned husband’s case, the organization said.

The June 23 attack, the day before the ceasefire between Israel and Iran took hold, hit several prison buildings and prompted concerns from rights groups about the safety of the inmates.

It remains unclear why Israel targeted the prison, but it came on a day when the Defense Ministry said it was attacking “regime targets and government repression bodies in the heart of Tehran.”

The news of the prison attack was quickly overshadowed by an Iranian attack on a US base in Qatar later that same day. On the day of the attack, the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran criticized Israel for striking the prison, seen as a symbol of the Iranian regime’s repression of any opposition, saying it violated the principle of distinction between civilian and military targets.