Sleepless in wartime: Iran targets the god of dreams |
Jus in Bello is the body of law governing how a war is fought during that armed conflict. The primary aim is to limit the suffering of the non-combatants – civilians, medics, and wounded soldiers no longer in the fight. The key principles of Jus in Bello are distinction, proportionality, and necessity. On February 28, 2026, the US and Israel began an armed conflict against Iran. In reply, Iran has launched missile and drone attacks against civilian targets – itself a war crime. Iran asserts, contentiously, that there are no civilians in Israel. Within this calculus, Iran has attacked Israel with missiles, including the use of cluster bombs, prohibited by over 110 countries under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.
The timing and the intensity of these attacks matter. Strategically, such actions have little chance of tipping the conflict in Iran’s favor. Iran’s missile attacks against the Israeli population are weapons of terror, not weapons of serious mortality. Each lost life matters enormously, but what is the actual risk of death, and how effective are bombing campaigns in breaking the resolve of the people under attack? In modern conflicts, bombing alone has classically been regarded as failing to win wars, but Iran may have no intention of “winning” in the classical sense.
Consider the Nazi V-1 bombing of the city of London. This campaign began on June 13, 1944, – one week after D-Day- and lasted until March 29, 1945. In late June 1944, as many as 100 missiles targeted London per day. Approximately 2,400-2,500 missiles hit the city of London and caused 6,184 fatalities. As a rough estimate, each bomb killed 2.5 people. In 1939, the population of the city of London was approximately 8.6 million people.
During the Blitz, London’s population had fallen to about 3.2 million people due to wartime evacuations. This means that for each citizen, each fired missile had approximately a 1 in 150,000 chance of killing them. That is a very rare event. A person is more likely to die in a car accident or from being struck by lightning. The V-1 was a highly effective weapon of terror but failed to break the resolve of Londoners. Morale remained high.
As of March 22, 2026, Iran has fired approximately 400 missiles against Israel. Approximately 90% of these have been successfully intercepted by Israeli defense systems. By this estimate, about 40 missiles have hit Israel. Because of these strikes, 18 Israelis have died, and over 180 have been injured. More missiles will be fired, and more Israelis will be killed and injured. By the current calculations, Iran must fire 20 missiles to kill one person. If one estimates the population of Israel to be 10,000,000, then the chance for any individual citizen to die is vanishingly small. It is more likely to die by being struck by a falling piece of a commercial jetliner. It is more likely that one will be canonized or struck by lightning “twice” than die by an Iranian missile.
From the perspective of the average Israeli citizen, long odds are still cold comfort. Our relationship to probability and risk is counterintuitive. While humans might be natural grammarians, we are not natural statisticians. We are afraid to fly, though the chance of dying in a commercial plane crash is 1 in 800,000,000. We are much less fearful of driving, but the chance of dying is 1 in 93.
Our ability to engage in risky behavior is related to the locus of control. When risk is perceived as outside of our control, the psychological toil is greater. Being subjected to missile fire puts that locus of control beyond reach. In response, Israeli citizens have rushed to shelters in the hope that such actions improve their chances of safety and regain the lost locus of control. Even though the chance of death while simply standing out in the open might be only a fraction of a degree higher than being in a bomb shelter, it is extremely difficult to avoid such defensive actions.
Iran knows this. After all, they are people too. Iran’s strategy is to send salvos without much of a pattern in terms of time and place, and in so doing, shifts the locus of control away from the individual Israeli. Many of these salvos are occurring at night, and consequently, Israelis find themselves running for cover throughout the night.
Seeking shelter is not only psychologically beneficial, but it is also arguable that the precautions taken in seeking shelter have positively contributed to the number of lives saved. All the Israeli strategies used to mitigate risk have impacted the state of morale and the absolute number of deaths and injuries. These actions shift the locus of control back to individuals. Though running to shelters might mitigate risk, even if only slightly, the consequences of these nighttime actions by Israeli citizens warrant special consideration.
Nighttime missile salvos, though not broadly lethal, are creating a serious health impact. Rising multiple times at night creates the very serious health consequence of sleep deprivation. Intentional sleep deprivation perpetrated by an adversary is recognized as torture. It is a form of cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment. When used during war, it can be prosecuted as a war crime.
Most adults require at least 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep per night. One full sleep cycle is 90-120 minutes. Within one cycle, 4 stages are described: Stage 1 (light sleep), Stage 2 (Non-REM light sleep), Stage 3 (Non-REM deep sleep or slow-wave sleep), and Stage 4 (REM, rapid eye movement). The stages of sleep are necessary for physical repair, energy restoration, immune system modulation, emotional regulation, and memory consolidation.
In an average night of normal sleep, we pass through several complete cycles. Unnatural interrupted sleep cycles may be worse than a shorter amount of continuous sleep. Despite this need, the incoming missile warning is the alarm you can’t ignore. Lack of sleep causes rapid cognitive impairment, fatigue, mood instability, and a state resembling intoxication. Long-term consequences of sleep deprivation cause an increase in cardiovascular and metabolic disease. A lack of sleep can shorten your life. Iran need not kill Israelis quickly, violently, and dramatically. They can instead kill them slowly, by the simple act of depriving them of a night of sleep.
Morpheus was the Greek god of dreams. He was the son of Hypnos, the god of sleep. Morpheus delivered the dreams to kings and heroes. Morpheus was elusive and was not known for physical confrontations. Nevertheless, Iran has Morpheus in its sights. People without dreams can lose hope. When Iranian missiles stop, as they must, the restoration of dreams will be needed by the survivors to imagine a better future.