TEHRAN’S notorious Evin Prison has been blitzed by an Israeli airstrike, according to officials

A drone is thought to have blown up the jail’s gates in an effort free the regime’s fiercest critics.

The prison is notorious for shackling political prisoners, journalists and even Brits on bogus charges.

Isareli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly called for Iran’s people to rise up against the regime.

Busting out its ardent critics could be an attempt fan the flames of rebellion, by returning anti-Ayatollah activists to the streets.

The IDF acknowledged the strike: “Following orders from PM Netanyahu and Defense Minister Katz, the IDF is striking regime and security targets in central Tehran — including the Basij HQ, Evin Prison, the “Israel destruction clock,” IRGC internal security HQs, and more.”

Some political prisoners have been banged up in the hellhole for decades.

Reports on the horrific conditions have come from those who manage to make it out.

Marziyeh Amirizadeh, 43, spent 259 days in Evin, Iran’s most notorious prison, where British mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was also held.

Here, Marziyeh reveals the horror she endured – and how she rebuilt her life after her release as told to Kate Graham.

Evin Prison was opened in northern Tehran in 1972, one of the final years of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s reign before the Shah was overthrown in the Islamic Revolution.

At the time, it was operated by his fearsome security service (SAVAK) who were famed for their ruthless torture and murder of the Shah’s political opponents.

And when the Ayatollah Khomeni took control of Iran, the violence at Evin continued and even escalated.

In the 1980s, tens of thousands of dissidents from one rebel group — the People’s Mujahidin of Iran — were hanged in Evin, in one of the most savage political mass killings in modern history.

Nowadays, anyone who speaks out against the regime in Iran can find themselves behind Evin’s deeply fortified walls.

Bloggers, teachers and academics are arrested in the middle of the night and thrown in Evin’s squalid cells after being convicted of questionable crimes without proper legal defence.

There are said to be so many intellectuals in one wing of the prison that it’s earned the dark nickname “Evin University”.

No prisoner has ever been known to escape.