| The war between the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah and Israel has been devastating for the people of Lebanon, including civilians: Israel’s attacks, theoretically targeted at combatants, have killed thousands and displaced more than a million people. Last week, the two sides declared a ceasefire, although Israeli strikes have continued. What has it been like to live under the bombardment? In a project from Opinions staff, civilians in Lebanon describe what they’ve experienced. The intelligent, pained voices of these regular people bring the war home. “As long as you hear the bomb, then it’s not landing on you. You will not hear the strike that will kill you,” said Mihad Haidar, a young writer. A public policy expert named Diana Menhem gave her perspective. “We lived through a very difficult civil war from 1975 to 1989,” she said. “As a nation, we always said that we’d never allow proxy wars — the wars of others — to take place on Lebanese soil again. Then, on Oct. 8, Hezbollah tied Lebanon’s fate to Gaza’s, with zero thinking about how to protect the Lebanese people.” The conflict has led to a profound collapse in social functioning. “This country needs a software reset,” Bana Bashour, a professor of philosophy, told our editors. Notably, one person interviewed for the project has since been lost. Bilal Raad, a member of Lebanon’s Civil Defense Forces, evacuated his family early in the war; his 2-year-old daughter “was terrified because of the constant sound of the airstrikes,” he said. On Nov. 14, Raad was killed by a strike against a civil defense center. Chaser: In April, we published an essay by Mahmoud Almadhoun, a shopkeeper and chef in northern Gaza who had opened a soup kitchen to feed what he described as “a seemingly endless line of hungry families” left without resources by the Israel-Gaza war. He was reportedly killed by an Israeli drone this past weekend. Nomination watch Josh Rogin recently wondered how on earth Tulsi Gabbard could be seen as a good pick to run the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: “Her long-standing pattern of embracing and amplifying Russian propaganda speaks to her poor judgment and tenuous allegiance to the truth.” But author and former Post reporter Ronald Kessler has a more galaxy-brain take: Why do we need an ODNI at all? “There’s hardly a more bloated or unnecessary bureaucracy in the entire federal government,” he argues. Meanwhile, Ruth Marcus writes that Donald Trump putting forward hyper-loyal conspiracy theorist Kash Patel for FBI director — when, ahem, there is already a Trump-appointed director, Christopher Wray, with years to go in his term — is a “hair-on-fire moment.” Matt Bai writes that, by becoming independently infamous for his counterfactual medical beliefs and willingness to cozy up to Trump, RFK Jr. has finally become more than just a Kennedy. Congrats, I guess? | 
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