THE death toll from the protests in Iran has risen past 33,000, shock figures show.
The stats were revealed as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s regime threatened war if the US took any action against it.
Previous estimates had suggested between 16,500 and 18,000 people had been killed amid two weeks of unrest.
But new research suggests the real tally is at around 33,100.
A source in touch with protest groups in Iran said: “The latest figures are off the scale. This was genocide.”
As well as the deaths, 97,645 have been wounded — with 30 per cent having eye injuries, the research by Prof Amir-Mobarez Parasta found.
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The German- Iranian eye surgeon and human rights campaigner also said the regime was executing protesters — in defiance of warnings from US President Donald Trump.
Hospital admissions data showed 468 were put to death in Tehran alone — with more than 500 elsewhere in the country.
The revelation increases the pressure on Mr Trump to intervene — as the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier moves towards the Middle East.
US military chiefs at Centcom are said to be drawing up plans and are understood to have arrived in Israel.
But an Iranian official said the country would treat any attack “as an all-out war against us”.
Meanwhile, more than 100 protesters yesterday gathered outside Downing Street to call on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to be proscribed by the UK Government.