The economic cost of Perlov's strategy: targeting the children of Iranian leaders

The dark business of killing children: Orit Perlov's proposal

On 22 March 2026, Israeli security analyst Orit Perlov published (and later deleted) a tweet proposing a change in the military strategy against Iran through a "cruel religious approach" inspired by the tenth biblical plague: killing the children of senior Iranian officials, such as Vahidi, Araghchi and Qalibaf. "If we cannot reach the fathers, let us harm their children," she wrote, acknowledging that this tactic had taken them two years in Gaza and that they had not yet applied it in Lebanon.

The cost of brutality

Beyond the sarracena pavor, the proposal has direct economic implications. An escalation targeting civilians — especially the children of the elite — drives up the costs of conflict: harsher international sanctions, diplomatic isolation, higher military spending and volatility in energy markets. If Iran were to respond with symmetric measures, the oil price could exceed 150 dollars a barrel, according to calculations by some analysts. The region, already strained, faces a spiral of violence that no country can afford.

The perverse logic of the tenth plague

The biblical reference is no accident. The tenth plague, the death of the firstborn, is the ultimate punishment. But applying it as a war strategy reveals a dehumanisation that, beyond ethics, is economically counterproductive: every civilian victim multiplies resentment and the costs of occupation or reconstruction. "It took us two years to do it in Gaza," the tweet says, a tacit admission that the method is not effective in the short term.

In the end, the question that remains is whether proposals of this kind are a slip of the tongue or a sign of where military planning in the Middle East is heading. What is certain is that, since 7 October 2023, the line between the unthinkable and the executable has been steadily blurring. And that comes at a price everyone will pay.