The Iranian prison authority has “transferred” prisoners out of Evin prison after it was hit the day before by Israeli strikes, the country’s judiciary reported Tuesday.

The prison authority “transferred the inmates who were serving their sentences in this prison (Evin) to other facilities within Tehran province… to safeguard the rights of the prisoners and to provide space for emergency response teams,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said.

Local media reported the process had been completed, but it was unclear how many prisoners were transferred.

Iranian authorities defused two unexploded missiles that landed near the prison during an Israeli strike the day before, reports said.

“Two unexploded missiles that had been fired yesterday and landed in the vicinity of Evin prison were defused and safely transferred to a secure location,” Tasnim news agency reported, citing a police spokesman.

The UN human rights office said the airstrike on the prison containing political prisoners represents a grave violation of international humanitarian law.

“Evin prison is not a military objective, and targeting it constitutes a grave breach of international humanitarian law,” UN human rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday, without naming Israel.

He said that his office had received reports of fires inside the facility and an unspecified number of injuries.

Iran’s judiciary said Israeli strikes left sections of the facility damaged.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said an Israeli airstrike hit the gate of the prison, a large and heavily fortified complex where Iran has incarcerated political prisoners, journalists, academics, human rights activists, foreign nationals, and others.

Iranian state television shared what appeared to be black-and-white-surveillance footage of the strike.

The prison is infamous among activists for torture and other rights abuses.

France already hit out at Israel over the strike on the prison, which is holding two French nationals and other Europeans.

“This is unacceptable,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot wrote on X Monday, although he said that the strike was not believed to have harmed French nationals Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris.

“I have asked my Iranian counterpart for news of them and for their immediate release,” Barrot added.

Their families expressed dismay at the bombing.

Cecile’s sister Noemie Kohler told AFP the attack was irresponsible and put prisoners “in mortal danger.”

Cecile Kohler has been held along with her partner Jacques Paris in Iran since May 2022 on espionage charges that their families reject.

Overall, Iran is believed to hold around 20 European nationals in what some Western governments describe as a strategy of hostage-taking aimed at extracting concessions from the West.

“This strike is completely irresponsible. Cecile, Jacques, and all the prisoners are in mortal danger,” said Noemie Kohler. “This is really the worst thing that could have happened.”

The wife of another prisoner at Evin, Swedish-Iranian academic Ahmadreza Jalali, said she had spoken to her husband but had no clarity about his fate.

Vida Mehrannia told AFP her husband, who is on death row, had called her to say he was being moved but did not know where he was going.

“Is it because they want to carry out the sentence or for another reason,” she said.

“I don’t know. After the call, I don’t even know if they transferred him or not.”

Jalali, who was arrested in 2016 and sentenced to death in 2017 for spying for Israel, was granted Swedish nationality while in jail.

Several people accused of spying for Israel have been executed in recent weeks in Iran, leaving Mehrannia deeply worried about her husband.

United Nations investigators warned Monday of the “extensive suffering” Israeli attacks were causing in Iran, voicing particular concern at the risk facing detainees held near sites being bombed.

They called on Israel to avoid hitting non-military targets and on Iran to move prisoners to safety.

In the meantime, Israel and Iran agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire, although the truce was tested within hours of coming into effect early Tuesday when Iran fired a pair of ballistic missiles at Israel, which responded with a small strike.

Israel began an air campaign against Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure on June 13.

Iran has responded to the Israeli attacks with near-daily barrages of missiles at cities, killing 28 people and wounding thousands, according to health officials and hospitals. Some of the missiles have hit apartment buildings, a university and a hospital, causing heavy damage.

Israel says its sweeping assault on Iran’s top military leaders, nuclear scientists, uranium enrichment sites, and ballistic missile program is necessary to prevent the Islamic Republic from realizing its avowed plan to destroy the Jewish state.

But the list of targets widened, encompassing state television and the Iranian domestic security forces.