A report by The Jerusalem Post on Sunday, citing Time magazine and purported Iranian hospital data, said as many as 30,000 people may have been killed in Iran during a two-day crackdown on protests.
That figure sharply exceeds Iran's official death toll.
Time reported Sunday that two senior Iranian Health Ministry officials told the magazine as many as 30,000 people may have been killed nationwide during the Jan. 8-9 crackdown.
And a separate compilation of hospital data shared with Time listed 30,304 deaths as of Friday, Jan. 9.
Time reported that the figures could not be independently verified.
Officials said the scale of killing overwhelmed local capacity to handle the dead, exhausting body-bag supplies and prompting the use of semitrailer trucks to move bodies.
The report said security forces used rooftop snipers and trucks mounted with heavy machine guns after authorities cut communications, and it cited an alleged warning on Iranian state television that anyone "entering the streets" should not complain if a bullet hit them.
Time attributed the hospital-based compilation to Dr. Amir Parasta, described as a German-Iranian ophthalmologist, who told the magazine, "We are getting closer to reality," while adding that the tally likely excluded cases from military hospitals and areas that could not be reached.
Public health specialists cautioned against overextrapolating from hospital records but viewed the internal figures as pointing to mass killing over a short period.
Iran has publicly acknowledged a far lower death toll.
Iranian state media reported Jan. 21 that 3,117 people were killed during the unrest, citing a statement carried by Press TV and attributed to the Martyrs Foundation.
Independent counts and estimates also vary widely.
The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, known as HRANA, said in a report posted Sunday that it had confirmed 5,459 deaths and was investigating 17,031 additional cases.
Iran International, a London-based outlet, previously reported at least 12,000 killed during the Jan. 8-9 crackdown, and on Sunday published a separate report asserting more than 36,500 killed, citing documents it said its editorial board reviewed.
The United Nations Human Rights Council has also, in recent days, moved to expand international scrutiny.
In a media advisory dated Friday, the U.N. human rights office said the council extended the mandate of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran for two years and requested an urgent investigation into alleged serious violations linked to protests that it said began Dec. 28, 2025.
Time noted that if the internal estimates are accurate, the killings would be among the deadliest mass shootings in a comparable time span in modern records, drawing a comparison to the Babyn Yar massacre in Nazi-occupied Ukraine, where the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum says 33,771 Jews were murdered over two days, Sept. 29-30, 1941.
Jim Thomas ✉
Jim Thomas is a writer based in Indiana. He holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science, a law degree from U.I.C. Law School, and has practiced law for more than 20 years.
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