The casket of the Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli strike is carried to his grave in this small village with determined devotion by his fellow fighters. They have tears in their eyes, and sweat from the heat and exertion. On the hand of one reaching to hold on is tattooed a grenade.

But it is Hassan Yehya Naameh’s family who put the lifelong Hezbollah member to rest, starting with his seven-year-old daughter, Hana. She wears a camouflage uniform and is carried ahead of the cortege, amid raised arms, anti-Israel chants, and waving banners of the Lebanese Shiite militia.

As a Hezbollah honor guard presides over the ceremony – each fighter smeared with camouflage face paint – tributes are given and Hana holds a portrait of her father as she rests, in a final farewell, on his flag-draped casket.

About 330 fighters have been killed across southern Lebanon since Iran-backed Hezbollah escalated its conflict with Israel to support Palestinian Hamas militants, who attacked from Gaza last Oct. 7. Hezbollah has signaled it will stop its campaign if Israel ends its Gaza offensive.

But this fallen fighter, a unit commander, is portrayed as a triumphant hero, cut down “on the road to Jerusalem” while “defending the cause.” His burial, beside half a dozen others killed fighting for Hezbollah in previous wars, speaks to the long-term mindset of the Middle East’s most powerful Shiite militia – and how it views the current conflict with Israel as another data point in the inevitable demise of the Jewish state.

Indeed, as the sun sets over this hilltop ceremony in southern Lebanon, the strength of the sentiments indicates the scale of the challenge to Israel should it – or should Hezbollah, which is known to be magnitudes stronger than Hamas – ever decide to engage in all-out war.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Hezbollah members and supporters pay tribute to commander Hassan Yehya Naameh at his funeral in Mahrouna, Lebanon, May 20, 2024. Some 330 Hezbollah fighters have been killed since the Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite militia stepped up cross-border strikes against Israel in support of Hamas' Oct. 7 attack.

There is much anger directed at Israel at this funeral. But for Hezbollah and the Shiite Muslim true believers here, there is added inspiration drawn from the legend of a historical battle 14 centuries ago, when Imam Hussein became the “Lord of the Martyrs” by fighting for a just cause despite impossible odds.

Death in battle is cast as something to aspire to, a sacrifice worthy of celebration, not of sorrow.

“My son Hassan, the soul of God, congratulations to you, from us – you got your wish, this rank [of martyrdom] you just achieved,” said the Hezbollah commander’s father, Yehya Naameh, repeatedly thanking God for “this great gift of martyrdom with my own son.”

The cost to Lebanon

Admired as such devotion can be in some quarters, Hezbollah fighters are torn between an ideological imperative to fight what they consider Israeli occupation of Arab lands, and not triggering a full-blown war that would flatten southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s fighters say they want to fight – often to grasp the “gift” of martyrdom, as Mr. Naameh did – and that Israel’s failure so far to crush Hamas in Gaza after eight months of battle shows its relative weakness. Already Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging some 13,000 projectiles a month across the Lebanon-Israel border, according to United Nations peacekeeping forces.

Hezbollah is the most powerful arm of the Iran-led “Axis of Resistance.” Yet Iran, which analysts say has veto power over Hezbollah’s decision to launch an all-out war, is faced with a litany of its own internal problems, and has made clear its desire to avoid a broader war.

And in Lebanon, questions are being raised about the cost of the extensive destruction already wrought; about the price paid by 90,000 displaced citizens; and whether Lebanon can add a full-blown conflict to chronic, impoverishing economic and political woes.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Beekeeper Elias Shayah shows damage to his home from an Israeli shell in Alma el-Shaab, Lebanon, May 18, 2024. For months the Christian village adjacent to Lebanon's southern border has been caught in the middle of intense artillery and rocket exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel.

“Until now, we did not hear any mother or father of a martyr say, ‘Hezbollah destroyed my family,’” says a senior Hezbollah missile specialist when asked about pushback among some Lebanese. “So we still have the people’s support.

“We are not in a carnival, we are not having a party here; we are in a state of war,” says the specialist, who would not give his name.

In the last full-scale Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006, at least 250 combatants and more than 1,100 civilians were killed in Lebanon, with some 121 military and 44 civilian deaths in Israel, in 34 days of combat.

Despite the escalation over the past eight months, which have seen the deepest and most consequential Hezbollah-Israel strikes since 2006, both sides have deliberately taken steps to avoid an out-of-control spiral of violence.

“It’s tearing me apart”

The result is a conundrum for Hezbollah: As it watches Hamas locked in battle with its arch-enemy, it has so far played only a secondary role – a trajectory that has angered some Hezbollah fighters who trained for years for what they were told was an inevitable “final” decisive fight against Israel.

“Personally, it doesn’t matter how I feel, because I receive orders from the higher command center,” says the missile specialist, who speaks with calm confidence. “But since you asked … I am experiencing frustration, because it is not a full-fledged war. ... I am ready to fight – we are all ready to fight. It’s killing me, it’s tearing me apart that we are not in full-scale action with the Israelis.”

Still, Hezbollah is gaining insight into Israeli capabilities from the fight in Gaza. It has done little to dent the brash confidence of a militia that today boasts an arsenal of at least 150,000 rockets and missiles.

Noted often during interviews with three Hezbollah veterans is the example of north Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp. Israel struck it repeatedly with large bombs early in the conflict, destroyed entire residential blocks, and then declared the area cleared – only to be attacked by Hamas again from it last month.

“We’re talking about Hamas here, small Hamas,” says the Hezbollah missile specialist, laughing. “They are giving the Israelis hell, and [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu keeps claiming victory after victory. … They can’t take Jabaliya, and they talk about us? We are the cream of the resistance. Imagine what we can do.”

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Smoke from an Israeli strike rises above the Lebanese village of Maroun al-Ras, May 19, 2024. Hezbollah says two of its fighters were killed in the blast, including unit commander Hassan Yehya Naameh.

Still, the cost to Hezbollah has already been high, and Israeli targeting can be precise. The day before Mr. Naameh’s funeral, for example, this correspondent visited the Christian Lebanese border town of Rmaich.

That day, at 2:21 p.m. in the direction of the nearby Shiite village of Maroun al-Ras, Israeli forces fired a single rocket or shell that sent a large plume of smoke into the air. Hours later, Hezbollah announced that the strike killed Mr. Naameh and another fighter.

“Until now, the rules are still under control, but we can’t be more patient than we are now,” says a ranking Hezbollah officer who gave the name Ahmad, contacted in a small village in southern Lebanon. He applauds the Hamas attack, but says it was a “strategic miscalculation” that Hamas did not share the timing with Hezbollah, so that both could have simultaneously “taken more ground and killed more Israelis together.”

Victory is an article of faith

But there is also a practical rationale for taking careful decisions, says Ahmad.

“The reason we don’t escalate right now with a harder, larger scale war, is because we have specialists who study the economic well-being of the people of the south, our supporters, and ask: Are they ready for this, or not?” says the veteran Hezbollah officer. “We can’t just jump in and launch a full-scale war, knowing our people don’t know where their next piece of bread is coming from.”

“Yes, we can do it now,” says Ahmad. “But we are waiting for the right moment, for our people to be in the right shape.”

Calculations could change, but for Hezbollah confidence in eventual “victory” is an article of faith, no matter the timeline.

“If we make our decision to go in, we are going in and we are not going back – we are not Hamas,” says a thick-set veteran Hezbollah fighter of 22 years, who gave the pseudonym Jihad. “The Israelis are going to regret it, and they are going to wish their war stayed with Hamas.

“We believe the Israelis are intruders; that’s not their country. We can fight 20 wars, and win once, and consider ourselves winners,” says Jihad. “Israel can never continue this way. … They are the ones who are going to end up without a country, not us.”

Manish Swarup/AP

Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets supporters as he arrives at Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters in New Delhi, June 4, 2024.

India’s sitting Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to return for a third term after a closer-than-expected Lok Sabha race.

As results from the world’s largest-ever election trickled in late Tuesday evening, it became clear that Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party had failed to claim the 272 seats needed for an outright majority in Parliament, a verdict the opposition alliance is calling a moral defeat. But with the BJP winning well over 200 seats and vowing to form a coalition government, the party will continue to wield significant power over the next five years – with Mr. Modi at the helm.

In his first reaction after the results, Mr. Modi thanked his party workers and declared that the BJP “will continue the good work done in the last decade to keep fulfilling the aspirations of people.” Since coming to power in 2014, Mr. Modi has promised Indians greater prosperity at home and a stronger image of the country abroad. In some ways, his government has moved the needle forward. But during Mr. Modi’s rule, India has also witnessed a major democratic decline, with the U.S. nonprofit Freedom House stating last year that democracy was “losing ground” in India due to government crackdowns against dissent and democratic values.

These were issues the opposition raised repeatedly on the campaign trail.

“I think it’s a rap on the knuckles from the voters,” says Neelanjan Sircar, senior fellow at the New Delhi-based think tank Centre for Policy Research, about the election results. 

Still, he says the BJP has claimed “a formidable number” of seats, and will guide the national agenda, as it has for the past decade. 

Economic growth, static unemployment

Over the last 10 years, India has been one of the fastest-growing large economies, with an annual gross domestic product growth rate averaging 5.6% from 2014 to 2022. Meanwhile, extreme poverty decreased from 18.7% in 2015 to 12% in 2021, according to World Bank data.

The Modi government attributes this progress to various health and employment programs it launched for the general populace. Yet the government has also struggled to create productive jobs for its large unskilled labor force. In 2021, nearly half of workers remained in the low-paying agriculture sector, which generated about 17% of the nation’s GDP that year.

SOURCE:

World Bank, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, The Mirrority

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

Despite efforts to boost local manufacturing and other jobs, India’s unemployment rate reached a 45-year high of 6.1% in 2017-2018, and surged to 20.8% during the COVID-19 pandemic before decreasing in recent years. Unemployment and inflation remain significant concerns for many voters, and the challenging labor market was a central issue for opposition parties targeting the Modi government during the election.

Infrastructure push gains momentum

Under Mr. Modi, India has witnessed significant strides in infrastructure development, marked by the expansion of national highways, airports, port capacity, and the optical fiber network, as well as railway electrification. These advancements have enhanced connectivity, supported economic growth, and aimed to bridge the rural-urban divide. Yet the government often fell short of its ambitious targets, revealing gaps in execution and planning.

In the railway sector, for example, Mr. Modi vowed to completely electrify India’s railway tracks by 2022. Although his government’s progress has dramatically outpaced the last government’s, that goal of full electrification remains unmet today. Efforts to double India’s highways and port capacity have also met roadblocks.

SOURCE:

Lok Sabha, Centre for Railway Information Systems, Indian Ministry of Communications

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

While the rapid development reflects the Modi administration’s strong commitment to infrastructure, experts say these unmet goals highlight the need for more effective strategies to fully realize the country’s infrastructure potential.

Modi’s welfare boom

The Modi government has prioritized the efficient delivery of public goods and social welfare programs, with an emphasis on reducing corruption. A significant achievement was the near-universal enrollment of Indian adults in the Aadhaar system, a digital ID program used to facilitate direct transfers of money to bank accounts.

The government’s commitment to welfare was particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, when food aid surged nearly fivefold between 2019-2020 and 2021-2022, ensuring widespread access to affordable food grains. 

Additionally, the percentage of people owning bank accounts rose from 48.3% in 2014 to 71.1%, driven largely by the need to receive subsidies.

SOURCE:

Indian Ministry of Finance, The Foundation for Independent Journalism

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

These comprehensive welfare measures and extensive cash transfers have bolstered the BJP’s popularity among marginalized groups, which had traditionally supported the opposition Congress party.

Declining press freedom

India’s 21-spot fall in the Press Freedom Index rankings highlights growing restrictions on journalistic activity, as well as a broader trend of shrinking space for dissent – one that experts believe will continue during a third term. 

Under the BJP, journalists’ access to the government has been restricted, with Mr. Modi largely avoiding holding press conferences.

Foreign journalists in India have faced stringent permit requirements, especially in sensitive regions like Kashmir and Assam, and the persecution of local journalists has increased more than fourfold since Mr. Modi took office.

SOURCE:

Reporters Without Borders

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

At least 36 journalists were imprisoned between 2014 and 2023, compared with eight during the previous Congress-led government. A vaguely written terror law known as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was used to detain 16 of these journalists – seven of whom, including this reporter, were from Kashmir – highlighting the intensification of state control over the press. Several activists and journalists were also barred from traveling outside the country.

Jingnan Peng/The Christian Science Monitor

Louisville resident Eric Lee poses March 15, 2024, next to a redbud tree in his yard, planted for free by the nonprofit TreesLouisville. The group says it seeks resident buy-in before planting on or in front of their homes, and lets residents choose from a list of available tree species.

Many low-income urban areas in the United States have a pressing need for trees. With about half as much tree canopy coverage as their affluent counterparts have, these areas face a host of risks, such as air pollution, poor water quality, and dangerously high heat.

But government tree-planting programs meant to close this gap can face resistance from the very communities they intend to help. The resistance, research shows, is tied not only to residents’ lack of means to maintain trees but also to distrust. 

“In a lot of lower-income communities, there’s been a lack of investment in tree care by the city,” says Christine Carmichael, a forestry consultant who wrote a book on the impact of racism on urban trees. “And so there’s a real need now to have some accountability and rebuild trust.”

As ambitious tree-planting projects take place across the country, cities and nonprofits are exploring how to better integrate the needs of underserved communities in their work.

LaDonna Faye Barnett wanted trees on her Louisville, Kentucky, property. She liked having shade, but did not want trees that would grow too large. 

It had taken her two decades to get the city to remove two pin oaks from the easement in front of her home. The city trees’ heavy branches hung over her yard and carport, and their roots had pushed up the sidewalk, causing people to trip. Getting rid of the trees herself required permission from the city and would have cost thousands of dollars, which she could not afford, Ms. Barnett says.

The city eventually cut down the trees in 2020. “It took me 20 years of continuously complaining,” Ms. Barnett says.

But after that, she had a good experience with TreesLouisville, a nonprofit that planted three trees in her yard and in the easement for free.

Jingnan Peng/The Christian Science Monitor

A fringe tree stands in the easement in front of LaDonna Faye Barnett's home in Louisville, Kentucky, March 15, 2024. The tree replaces two large pin oaks that were removed by the city because they were hazardous.

The group, founded by local civic leaders in 2015 in response to Louisville’s declining tree canopy, focuses its planting efforts on historically redlined neighborhoods and other areas with low canopy. The group makes sure to get resident buy-in before planting on or in front of their property, and lets residents choose from a list of available tree species, says Cindi Sullivan, its executive director.

Having that choice was important, says Ms. Barnett, who picked black gum trees for her yard, partly because they will not grow too large. The staff of TreesLouisville planted the trees and gave her instructions on how to care for them. She has not had any issues with them since, and says she enjoys the beauty of their leaves.

“It was a perfect time for somebody that knew what they were doing to guide you,” Ms. Barnett says.

Residents “had been left out”

Urban forestry programs have not always taken low-income communities’ needs into account. 

Between 2011 and 2014, the city of Detroit worked with a nonprofit to plant free street trees, primarily in low-canopy areas. But a quarter of the 7,425 residents reached by the initiative turned down the offer, despite being informed of the many potential benefits of trees. Their refusal, says Dr. Carmichael, who co-wrote a study on the Detroit case, stemmed partly from a history of negative experiences with the city. 

“People had been left out of a lot of decisions around urban trees and where to plant them, what types of trees to plant, and why,” she says. “If [residents] were going to accept a new tree, they wanted to be able to select from a menu of trees, rather than having someone select the tree for them, which was the way the program was run when I was doing the research.” 

In her consulting work with forestry projects across the country, Dr. Carmichael has seen similar issues play out. People may want trees on or near their properties for shade or beauty, or as a source of food in a food desert. Yet sometimes cities and nonprofits want to plant trees that will grow larger and provide more ecosystem benefits. 

“When you have communities that have been through a lot of challenges with larger trees that haven’t been cared for, it’s a pretty tough sell,” she says. She recommends cities and nonprofits work on building strong communication with residents and collaborate with them to maintain new trees in the long term. 

Jingnan Peng/The Christian Science Monitor

Sustained care is important for a sapling to provide its full benefits. Here, Louisville resident Jeremiah Franqui stands March 17, 2024, next to a tree planted in his yard by the nonprofit TreesLouisville. The tree's trunk was broken due to vandalism, according to Mr. Franqui's mother.

Captains from the community 

During a planting season in early 2024, James Huerta found homes for 43 trees in his neighborhood in Nashville, Tennessee.

He has been volunteering since 2021 as a “neighborhood planting captain” for Root Nashville, a public-private partnership that plants free trees in low-canopy areas. The planting captains share information in their communities about Root Nashville’s tree offerings, and refer residents to staff who can guide them in the planting and tree care process.

Residents can choose from among five tree species for each planting season, says Mekayle Houghton, executive director of Cumberland River Compact, a nonprofit that leads Root Nashville’s daily operations.

Since its founding in 2018, Root Nashville has worked with 109 planting captains, who have facilitated the planting of more than 10,000 trees, the group says. Root Nashville also pays a stipend to the planting captains when funding is available. There have been 20 beneficiaries so far, whose stipends ranged from $150 to $1,000, the group says.

Mr. Huerta says two factors help him build trust with residents: the fact that he has three trees from Root Nashville in his own yard, and the fact that he is part of the community he works with. 

“I can be like, ‘That house on Antioch, that’s where we live.’ It helps a lot,” he says.

Ambitious goals

In the effort to reverse tree loss, the need for efficiency can come at the expense of trust-building.

America’s urban tree cover is projected to decrease by 8.3% between 2010 and 2060, due to factors such as pests and diseases, development, and extreme weather events. Reversing this trend would require the planting of 31.4 million trees every year – an annual investment of $8.9 billion, according to a study by American Forests, a conservation nonprofit.

In 2023, the U.S. Forest Service announced it will invest $1.1 billion in 385 projects aimed at creating equitable access to trees and green spaces.

Root Nashville’s goal – planting 500,000 trees by 2050 – is very ambitious, says Ms. Houghton, all the more because the group requires residents’ buy-in before planting in easements, which belong to the city.

“It’s very time-consuming communicating with residents,” she says. “The more efficient you get, the more of the human touch you lose. And the human touch is sort of what builds trust.”

“This is really a grassroots campaign to get people to say they want trees,” she says. “It’s a big investment in education and time.”

Anne-Marie d’Acremont is one of France’s top wheelchair basketball and rugby players, having played for the national team in both sports. When she hits the court, she navigates it with ease, snaking between her opponents before taking the ball to the net.

But getting to practice on Paris’ public transportation system is a different story.

“There’s only one metro line that has wheelchair access, and if the elevator is broken, I’m stuck,” says Ms. d’Acremont during a meeting with students at the University of Paris 8 in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. “The station manager will tell me to go to the next stop, which can be a half-mile down the road. But I have no choice. There’s no way I’m missing practice because of that.”

Ms. d’Acremont is the first to say that she has adapted to Paris when Paris doesn’t adapt to her. She’s used a wheelchair for over a decade, since she had Lyme disease as a teen and lost the ability to walk. She doesn’t harp on what she can’t do – only what she can.

Yet as Paris gets set to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer, city officials are under added pressure to improve accessibility and disability rights. The French capital is expected to welcome upward of 350,000 visitors living with a disability during the Games, and its centuries-old underground transportation system is just one of many areas of Parisian life that poses challenges to those with disability.

But more than the Paris Games improving accessibility around the city, Olympic organizers say they want the event to be a catalyst for creating broader awareness and inclusion of the 12 million people in France living with disabilities.

Colette Davidson

Anne-Elisabeth d'Acremont (right), a top French wheelchair basketball and rugby player, answers questions about disability at the University of Paris 8 during the Olympic and Paralympic Week, Saint-Denis, April 4, 2024.

Olympic and Paralympic Games of the past have had an impact on their societies and can provide lessons, but disability rights activists say more needs to be done if Paris is to make true societal change.

“The vision of disability is often either one of misery or heroism,” says Emmanuelle Fillion, a sociologist on disability at the School for Higher Education in Social Sciences in Paris. “It’s not to take away from the merits of our Paralympic athletes, but focusing on their ability to push limits doesn’t help us understand what daily life is like for people living with disability ... or how to create a more inclusive society.”

A new government priority

The rights of disabled people in France have been set forth by two major pieces of legislation in the last 50 years – one in 1975, primarily to orient the sociomedical sector, and another in 2005 to define disability for the first time in France.

But due to various draft laws and exemptions, much of that legislation was never implemented. In a 2021 report, the United Nations called on the French government to “review and bring into line” its disability policies with U.N. conventions.

The current government is hoping to change that. It wants to use the Olympics and Paralympic Games to improve accessibility, and made that a cornerstone of its candidacy to host the Games.

The government has pumped €1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) into making the Paris region’s transportation system, shops, and restaurants more accessible by this summer. It will also provide 1,000 taxi drivers with state aid to go toward buying vehicles accessible to wheelchair users and those with reduced mobility, which will be available during and after the Games. Taking cues from the London Games, Paris organizers have consciously promoted the Olympics and Paralympics as one uniform event.

But changing public views about disability has been harder.

“We’ve had to do a lot of trainings and awareness raising,” says Didier Eyssartier, director of Agefiph, an organization that is working with Olympic organizers to provide volunteer and work opportunities to people with disabilities during the Games. “Some employers think someone with a disability won’t be able to do a certain job or that hiring them will be complicated. ... We need to continue changing perspectives.”

Christophe Ena/AP/File

Protesters hold signs at the Melun train station outside Paris, April 26, 2023, amid frustration at dismal accessibility for people in wheelchairs and with other mobility challenges – and years of unmet promises to make things better ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Such stereotypes predate Olympic and Paralympic planning and are hard to tackle. According to a March 2024 study by polling center Ifop, 72% of French people associated disability with wheelchair use – compared with the roughly 10% of French people with disabilities who actually use one. Meanwhile, only 8% and 9% associated disability with visual and hearing disabilities, respectively, though people with those make up more than half of France’s population with disabilities. More than three-quarters of those polled felt that disabilities weren’t adequately represented on French television.

Change is slow, but coming. Since the beginning of 2023, two new roles have been created on prime-time television for actors with physical or mental disability. And France’s audiovisual sector is trying to boost awareness after a 2021 report showed that only 0.8% of people with disabilities were represented on television screens.

“Last year, my editor asked me if I would show my wheelchair during my broadcasts,” says Youssef Bouchikhi, who presents a culture program for public broadcaster France Télévisions. “At first I felt strange about it. I didn’t want people to just see that. But now I think it’s a good thing.”

A need to show real progress

There are hopes that the Paralympic Games can make similar strides in raising awareness, as was the case during the London Olympics. In 2012, late-night talk show “The Last Leg” was broadcast alongside the Paralympic Games, featuring three comedians, two of whom are each missing a foot or leg. During the Games, the show brought in more than a million viewers each night. It was so popular that it continued after the Games and has aired more than 320 episodes through this year.

But finding a balance between explicitly addressing disability and normalizing it has been a challenge. Ms. Fillion, the sociologist, says society must be wary of “handi-washing.”

“We can’t show that we’re a disability-friendly place if we don’t then help make daily life easier for someone with disabilities,” she says.

The city of London has struggled to maintain the momentum it gained during the Paralympic Games. While they did lead to a rebuild of several underground tube stations, only one-third of stations currently offer step-free access.

Japan, meanwhile, used its Olympics in Tokyo, which took place in 2021, as a vehicle to overhaul the accessibility of its national rail system, which is now over 90% barrier-free. It also introduced a host of disability laws, including one that explicitly bans discrimination.

As Paris looks ahead to the Olympic and Paralympic Games, organizers still have challenges ahead. President Emmanuel Macron admitted on national television in mid-April that Paris’ public transportation system would not be 100% wheelchair-accessible by the Olympics. And only 830,000 out of the 2.8 million tickets for Paralympic events have thus far been sold.

But if this summer’s Olympic and Paralympic events can push forward the discussion on disability, accessibility, and inclusion, advocates say that’s one step in the right direction.

“Sometimes kids will walk by and point at my wheelchair, and their parents will shush them,” says Ms. d’Acremont. “I’m sure they’re just trying to be nice, but I wish they would come over and ask me about it instead. Disability is not something we need to hide.”

When Rixy Fernandez grew up in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, her mother didn’t let her play outside. Highland Avenue was too dangerous. Two decades later, the interdisciplinary street artist has turned the city into her playground. Over the past several years, she has filled walls across Boston with vibrant, cartoon-inspired images. 

Highland Avenue may feel safer these days, but the neighborhood is changing. More college students live here, as do young families and commuters. Rixy, as she is known professionally, wants to ensure the longtime residents who share her Latinx Caribbean background continue to see themselves reflected in her towering art. 

“We’re still here,” she says, standing in a small patch of grass beneath one of her murals, covering the side of a three-story residential building in the neighborhood. “All these people can ... [see the] murals and come together, versus feeling like we need to erase you or you need to erase us.” 

That Highland Avenue mural, titled “Pa*Lante,” meaning “onward,” features an image of a woman and a dog against a colorful backdrop. Each of the eight paintings she’s created in the city is characterized by her signature style, which she describes as “sensual, powerful women of color” in an imaginative world. But each one also contains elements unique to the neighborhoods.

Rixy, who often relies on input from residents to come up with her designs, describes herself as a vessel trying to capture community identity – and then uses her paint to express it. “You’re a public artist,” she says about her artistic process. “Your art is for the public.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Rixy created “Pa*lante” in the Roxbury neighborhood when she was chosen for a public art program from Now + There, now known as the Boston Public Art Triennial.

The artist has exhibited in galleries from Massachusetts to California to the Dominican Republic. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and at Elevated Thought, a Massachusetts-based group focused on art and social justice. She’s active in arts education and has taught at local institutions. Several of her murals have been commissioned by the city of Boston, including a portrait of Rita Hester, a Black transgender activist who was killed in 1998. 

She created “Pa*Lante” when she was chosen for the Public Art Accelerator program from Now + There, now known as the Boston Public Art Triennial. To that organization, she represented the “character and tenacity and creativity of a local artist, especially a woman local artist, and a local artist of color,” says Jasper Sanchez, assistant curator with the Triennial.

Rixy’s artistic process begins with observation, even if that means just lying in the grass and watching the neighborhood bustle around her. “Are there schools? What are the closest restaurants? How can I use their culture a little bit more so they feel more represented?” she says. For example, a mural she painted in Cambridge, Massachusetts, includes fruit because it felt like an “artsy farmers market type of area.” 

The artist’s work features characters that are part of an imaginative world she calls “Cúcala,” which signifies female empowerment and inclusivity. 

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

“Fly, Like You,” by Rixy, adorns a wall in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. Her murals, which appear across the city, feature vibrant female characters.

A mural near the Fields Corner subway station in Dorchester, “Fly, Like You,” depicts a woman with a bright-green jacket and a blue-and-green bird on her finger. Rixy’s art often includes clothing inspired by video game characters, she says.

Back in Roxbury, she says she wants to acknowledge and make space for the longtime residents of color. She wants to remind people that “Roxbury is ... still so heavy with all of these cultures.”

Painting the three-story wall on Highland Avenue took only four days, Rixy says, but planning took a year. A lot of it was figuring out the logistics, including securing funding from grants and finding a scissor lift to borrow. 

But it also took six months to win over Tina Andrews, the owner of the building, who finally agreed to turn one side of her house into a mural featuring a woman and a dog with long purple acrylic toenails. Originally, Rixy wanted to incorporate a cat, but Ms. Andrews doesn’t like cats. 

The building owner says she has no regrets about her wall being turned into a mural. 

In person and via texts and social media, Ms. Andrews says, people tell her “how much they love it.” “You wouldn’t believe,” she says, “people just getting out of their cars and walking up to the wall to look at it.”

AP

Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani

For all the power available to an American president, Joe Biden made a special plea on June 3 to the leader of a tiny Arab sheikhdom. In a phone call, Mr. Biden urged the Emir of Qatar to press Hamas officials in the Gulf state to accept a U.S. proposal for ending the war in Gaza. It was perhaps an urging too far.

Qatar, like several other Arab states that often serve as go-betweens in conflicts, has relied mainly on nurturing trust and understanding between adversaries, such as Hamas and Israel, to achieve an agreement rather than on deploying carrot-and-stick tactics.

Qatar, for example, mediated a 2020 deal between the United States and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Oman often plays the role of a bridge-builder between the U.S. and Iran, while the United Arab Emirates recently facilitated a prisoner-of-war exchange between Russia and Ukraine. Iraq has been a key mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

These Arab “interlocutors” bring an approach that is deeply rooted in Middle East culture and “emphasizes reconciliation and restoration of relationships,” according to Nickolay Mladenov, a former United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process.

“In contrast to the more Western focus on swiftly identifying problems and executing interventions, the Gulf approach significantly emphasizes the slow and careful building of trust and rapport,” he wrote in a paper for the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development. Quiet, in-depth discussions between rivals rely on a mutual recognition of inherent dignity and honor, allowing exchanges from the heart.

“Their fresh perspectives on conflict resolution in an increasingly complex world are invaluable,” he stated. “Traditional powerhouses in mediation, such as the United States and European nations, sometimes find their tried-and-tested methods ill-suited to the specifics of new conflicts, deeply rooted in local contexts and regional power dynamics.”

In much of the Middle East, this approach is second nature. It comes from the pre-Islamic Arabic word sulh, which signifies the maintenance of harmony arranged by a third party. Whether the intangible practice of sulh can bring a sustainable peace to the people of Israel and Gaza remains to be seen. The leaders of those two places do not even accept each other’s existence.

Yet after so many wars in Gaza, the time may be ripe for Qatar or a similar Arab state to win the day with a patient and neutral approach that assumes each side seeks harmony and stability. Sometimes urgent disputes first need moments of peace to find a resolution.