DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran has killed at least 544 people and even more are feared dead, activists said Sunday, while Tehran warned that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America uses force to protect demonstrators.
Another over 10,600 people have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.
Those abroad fear the information blackout is emboldening hard-liners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown. Protesters flooded the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Online videos purported to show more demonstrations Sunday night into Monday.
U.S. President Donald Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the U.S. or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters Sunday night. Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”
The massive ongoing U.S. military deployment to the Caribbean is a factor that the Pentagon and Trump’s national security planners must consider.
This frame grab from a video released Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, by Iranian state television shows a man holding a device to document burning vehicles during a night of mass protests in Zanjan, Iran. (Iranian state TV via AP)
via Associated Press
Defiance in Parliament
The threat to strike the U.S. military and Israel came during a parliamentary speech by Mohammad Baagher Qalibaf, the hard-liner speaker of the body who has run for the presidency in the past.
He directly threatened Israel, calling it “the occupied territory.”
“In the event of an attack on Iran, both the occupied territory and all American military centers, bases and ships in the region will be our legitimate targets,” Qalibaf said. “We do not consider ourselves limited to reacting after the action and will act based on any objective signs of a threat.”
Lawmakers rushed the dais in parliament, shouting: “Death to America!”
It remains unclear how serious Iran is about launching a strike, particularly after its air defenses were destroyed during the 12-day war in June with Israel.