American hostage families rattled after strike on Iranian prison

Fears of a larger Middle East war began to subside Tuesday amid an uneasy ceasefire between Israel and Iran. While welcome, the de-escalation is doing little to ease the concerns of families of Americans and other Westerners held hostage in Iran. These families worry that their loved ones’ fates hang in the balance while the region remains on edge, waiting to see if the nascent truce will hold.

There are at least two confirmed Americans and reports of up to six more and dozens of hostages from other Western countries illegally being held in Iran’s notorious Evin prison. The hostages’ families and attorneys, who were keeping close tabs on the Israeli and U.S. bombings of Iran over the weekend, woke Monday morning to reports that Israel had dropped at least one bomb on or near the front gates of the prison.

Reports on X.com that the bombing was an attempted prison break were quickly set aside as unfounded. Videos showed that a missile strike damaged only the front entrance to the prison, and unconfirmed reports said other areas of the prison were hit, forcing the transfer of some prisoners to an unknown location. As the dust settles on the bombings, human rights advocates worry that the hostages are in more danger than ever before as Iran looks for ways to save face after the joint U.S.-Israel bombing campaign.

After watching the footage of Israeli bombs hitting the Iranian prison, Darian Dalili is extremely fearful for his father’s well-being, calling the missile strike “dangerous” and “irresponsible.” Shahab Dalili, a 63-year-old Iranian shipping captain who immigrated to the United States after retiring and settled in Virginia, has been illegally detained in Iran since 2016 when he traveled to Tehran for a brief visit for his father’s funeral.

“If you anger the Evin security guards or the people working at Evin, who are they going to take it out on?” Darian Dalili asked in an interview with RealClearPolitics, noting that he has heard from Iranian sources that his father remains alive at Evin. “When the Israelis give notice to evacuate an area of Tehran, there are Americans being held over there who are being held hostage and cannot evacuate. They cannot leave. They are stuck there.”

History has shown just how challenging such a mission is to accomplish. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter’s failed attempt to rescue 52 U.S. embassy staff held captive in Tehran ended in a fiery helicopter and plane crash that killed eight U.S. servicemen. A previous separate CIA attempt to rescue six American diplomats using a fake movie project as cover was ultimately a success and served as inspiration for the 2012 movie “Argo.”

Such a recovery effort would be even more difficult to execute when it comes to the heavily fortified Evin prison, which is known for its harsh treatment and torture of political prisoners. From early reports, it appears that the bombing of its front gate was intended to send a symbolic message that Israel has its eye on the notorious fortress, but human rights advocates argue the strike needlessly endangered the lives of hostages held there.

“Unless there was something else behind the bombing of Evin prison, it was a really dumb idea to do that when there are Americans and Europeans wrongfully detained in that facility,” said Jason Poblete, a human rights attorney and hostage advocate representing the Dalili family. “A prison is off limits even during times of war. Somebody should explain the reason why that was done.”

A White House spokeswoman did not respond to RCP’s questions about the rationale behind the prison bombing and whether the U.S. knew about it and signed off on the Israeli strike.

“President Trump is always concerned about Americans detained abroad, which is why he has brought nearly 50 Americans home – a record number – from around the world,” a White House official told RCP.

Indeed, in February, Richard Grenell, President Trump’s envoy for special missions, successfully led an effort to free six Americans illegally detained in Venezuela, and during Trump’s first term, his administration secured the release of more than 50 hostages from 24 countries, including at least two from Iran.

Hostage negotiations of those previously detained in Iran before the brutal Oct. 7, 2023, Iranian regime-backed Hamas attacks on Israel over the last two years have taken a back seat to those working to secure the release of Israelis, Americans, and European hostages held in Gaza. As of late June, 148 hostages have been released or rescued from Gaza, including three Americans. Edan Alexander, a U.S. citizen released in May, is believed to have been the last living American hostage there.

Since Iran’s dramatic seizure of the U.S. embassy in 1979, the regime’s hostage taking hasn’t ceased – it’s just got more sophisticated and profitable.

With the focus on the Hamas-held hostages, the Iranian regime detained more Westerners last year. In January 2024, Iranian authorities arrested Reza Valizadeh, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen and former journalist for the U.S. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Radio Farda, charging him with 10 years in prison on charges of “collaborating with a hostile government.” There are several other Americans that human rights advocates believe are being held in Evin prison who have received little to no media coverage, likely in part because their advocates are too fearful to speak publicly about the cases.

As hostilities between Israel, the U.S., and Iran escalated last year, Iran executed Jamshid Sharmahd, a U.S. permanent legal resident and dual German-Iranian citizen who had lived in California since 2009. Iranian authorities detained Sharmahd several years ago during a trip to Dubai, accused him of involvement in a 2008 mosque bombing, and transferred him to Evin prison. His family and advocates, including Poblete, argued the charges were unjustified and tried to free Sharmahd for years to no avail.

Sharmahd and Shahab Dalili were excluded from a high-profile August 2023 hostage deal that the Biden administration negotiated with Iran. Iran released five Americans in exchange for the U.S. agreeing to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian funds in South Korea and elsewhere and the release of several jailed Iranians.

Despite the Dalili family’s years-long campaign to secure Shahab’s release, the State Department has declined to designate Dalili as wrongfully detained. But in April, the Dalili family’s efforts were rewarded when the United Nations Work Group on Arbitrary Detention formally recognized Dalili as illegally detained.

Back in 2023, when some details began leaking out about Biden’s Iran hostage deal, Dalili’s son Darian, who emigrated to the U.S. with his father in 2014, launched a joint hunger strike with his father to raise awareness about his exclusion from the hostage deal. Darian also spent a weekend standing outside the White House and State Department, where reporters were pressing the agency for answers about his father’s case.

“It seemed to me that the political win of it mattered more than the substance of what the Biden administration really achieved,” Darian Dalili told RCP. “Whether the substance of it was 50% complete or 100% complete didn’t really seem to matter to them.”

It wasn’t the first time Dalili was left behind in a U.S. hostage deal with Iran. Two other Americans hostages, Nizar Zakka and Xiyue Wang, spent years sharing a cell with Dalili in Evin prison. The trio of Americans formed a tight bond, helping each other survive the harsh conditions and numerous mental and physical forms of torture handed down by their Iranian guards. Zakka, then a Lebanese citizen and permanent legal resident, was released in June 2019 in a deal brokered in part by Lebanon. Wang then received his freedom just a few months later, in deal that involved the U.S. agreeing to release an Iranian scientist detained on U.S.-sanctions-related charges.

Zakka himself was left out of the hostage deal President Obama announced in 2016, in which the U.S. government paid $1.7 billion in cash to the Iranian regime to settle a decades-old arbitration claim between the U.S. and Iran. A first payment of $400 million euros, Swiss francs, and other foreign currency was delivered the same day Tehran agreed to release four American hostages.

As Israel ramped up its bombing of Iran in late June, families of hostages from Europe and the U.S. have pleaded with their governments to intervene.

Vida Mehrannia, the wife of Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish citizen illegally imprisoned in Iran since 2016, wrote to Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, urging him to intervene.

“Thousands of prisoners, including my husband, French citizens Ceile Kohler and Jacques Paris, as well as Shahab Dalili, a U.S. [permanent legal] resident of Virginia, are locked in Tehran’s Evin prison, unable to take shelter from the bombings, dependent on prison guards for food, water and required medicines,” she wrote.

Darian Dalili and his family’s attorney are making similar pleas to Trump.

“I would like the American government and President Trump to try and ensure that the lives of civilians and the lives of innocent people are protected,” Dalili said.

His father has less than a year to serve in his 10-year sentence, so the Dalili family had hopes that he could be released, even though they know Iranian authorities have continued to hold other prisoners who have completed their sentences.

“I just want to make sure the American government remembers him, keeps him in mind,” Darian Dalili told RCP, adding that now that the U.N. working group has recognized his arbitrary detention, he hopes the U.S. government will follow suit.

Poblete echoed those remarks, arguing that the Israeli bombing of Evin prison could very well have harmed American citizens and U.S. nationals, as well as European hostages.

“I’m hoping the right people are trying to seek those assurances and make clear to the Iranian government that nothing better happen to Mr. Dalili or anyone else that’s in [Evin prison],” he said.