Manu Solidaire is quick to admit that he is not a real chef. Yet the cooking livestreams that he broadcasts from his tiny Paris apartment have attracted a huge audience on TikTok. They aren’t watching to see complicated cooking techniques; it’s his generosity that’s on full display.

The 33-year-old spends hours preparing dozens of meals before hopping on his bike and distributing the food to people living on the streets of Paris. Solidaire takes his online audience along every step of the way.

“When I wake up in the morning,” he said, “I’m thinking about, ‘What do I want to make today?’”

From prep to packaging, Solidaire’s cooking sessions last four to eight hours. His kitchen is only about 30 square feet, so there is little room for others to keep him company. Instead, he often has an audience of thousands interacting online in a party-like atmosphere.

“We laugh, we dance, we move, we are like a family on the live session,” he said.

When Solidaire first began delivering his meals in 2022, he said that he wore a GoPro camera on his bike helmet for his own security. After a few months, he started asking people if they would mind being in his videos. He says he uses these videos to change perceptions around homelessness.

“It’s to show to the world some homeless people … they work all their lives and right now they have some problems,” he said. “And maybe you can understand their situation.”

Solidaire’s TikTok account has 352,400 followers and 5.6 million likes. His social media audience helps fund his efforts through links on the account and by donating during his livestreams. Last year, Solidaire won TikTok’s L’award d’honneur for his work.

Solidaire first got to know people experiencing homelessness when he was running a pair of e-cigarette businesses. He would allow people in need to charge their phones in his store and would offer free coffee. Then, during the pandemic, he says “the business decreased, and the happiness decreased, too.”

“I was thinking, ‘I have to find a new way to be happy,’” he said.

One day, he made pasta for his family and had three portions leftover. He spent 20 minutes walking the streets and found three people who would not have eaten had he not offered the meals.

“I come back home with a really huge smile,” he said. “It’s good for me and good for them.”

Solidaire found a new mission and started up his TikTok livestreams hoping to share recipes and sharpen his cooking skills.

His first deliveries proved that he had some lessons to learn. When he would approach people, he said they did not know what to make of a stranger alone on his bike saying, “Hello, are you hungry? I have free food.” Then he realized, “’Manu, did you really ask about homeless people if [they] are hungry?’ Sure, [they] are hungry.” So, Solidaire changed his approach, instead saying, “I deliver free food for you. Do you need it?” He found people were far more accepting of his offer.

When he saw that their needs went beyond food, he began distributing hygiene supplies. He also sometimes offers to pay for hotel rooms.

Now, with the world’s eyes on Paris for the Olympic Games, many homeless people have been moved out of the city. Solidaire says he fears that the government is sending them to areas where they have no connection or resources. He argues this does not solve the underlying problems.

“We can’t just hide the poverty of the country without any solution,” Solidaire said, adamant that he will still feed the people who depend on him. “If I can’t find them on the streets … I will take the train to continue to deliver my food.”

One thing hasn’t changed for Solidaire since the first pasta meal he gave away: the joy that this work brings.

“When I see the smile I (get) on the street, when I see the smiles I have (doing this), and when I see the smiles (from) my followers … thank you for that.”

France’s high-speed train lines were targeted by multiple “malicious” acts including arson on Friday, in what has been described as “an attack on France” and “coordinated sabotage” to disrupt travel ahead of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.

The French state railway company SNCF called the overnight disruption a “massive attack aimed at paralyzing the high-speed line network.”

In a post on X, SNCF said that “a large number of trains were diverted or canceled,” and asked “all travelers who can to postpone their trip and not go to the station.”

The operator said the Atlantic, Northern and Eastern high-speed lines were impacted, with damage caused to several of its facilities, adding that one of the acts was “foiled” in the east after SNCF agents scared off several individuals.

SNCF CEO Jean-Pierre Farandou told journalists on Friday that cables – which are there to ensure the security of train drivers – were set on fire and taken apart but that authorities “don’t know who is behind it.”

Travel on the affected lines is “very disrupted,” with the railway network needing to divert and cancel a large number of trains, SNCF said. Disruptions – which it estimates could impact around 250,000 travelers today – were expected throughout the weekend, affecting 800,000 passengers, as work crews oversee repairs, it added.

The Rémi Train Centre Val de Loire said travel on its railway lines would be disrupted until at least Monday, with a fire near the tracks in Courtalain, northern France impacting services to Paris.

Farandou explained that they have to pull the damaged cables back together one by one, reconnect and test them. “It’s a question of security,” he said. “We have to make sure we test them so when trains are back up and running, they are safe.”

Brittany, a region in the northwest France, and the north of the country are the most impacted areas, SNCF said, though some trains have started running again, notably in eastern France. There would be no trains from Paris’ Gare Montparnasse, however, until at least 1 p.m. local time, Christophe Fanichet – the CEO of SNCF Voyageurs – told reporters.

Eurostar, the high-speed train service that connects the United Kingdom with France, has been forced to cancel and divert trains due to the “coordinated acts of malice,” on French lines.

The French Minister of Sports and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Amélie Oudéa-Castera said the disruption to the train lines are “a sort of coordinated sabotage.”

Speaking BFMTV, Oudéa-Castera condemned the attacks in the “strongest possible terms,” and said it is “truly appalling.”

“We will assess the impacts on travelers, athletes, and ensure the proper transport of all delegations to the competition sites,” she said.

Other French officials echoed her description of the attacks being intentional. Outgoing French transport minister Patrice Vergriete and Valerie Pecresse, head of the Île-de-France region, in which Paris lies, said on Friday that “all elements” pointed towards it being a “deliberate attack.” Vergriete added those elements were “the coincidental timing, the vans found after the people had fled (and) the arson materials found on location.”

Outgoing French prime minister Gabriel Attal said in a post on X that the consequences are “massive and serious” while SNCF called the disruption an “attack on France.”

In response to the attacks, Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said Friday that police are stepping up security and focusing manpower on the capital’s train stations.

Security in Paris had already been bolstered in recent weeks.

The cause of the disruptions is currently unclear. But there has been growing domestic unrest, powered in part by recent national elections that saw a battle between the left and far-right.

Interior Minister Darmanin confirmed security forces had detained a “member of the extreme-right” this week who was “suspected of wanting to commit violent action during the Olympic Games.” According to Darmanin, the man had an “intention to intervene during a phase of the torch relay.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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The final lick of paint was barely dry on the newly built, white-tiled Al-Hasanat home when the war in Gaza erupted in October.

For three-year-old Ayten, the apartment in central Gaza was a source of immense pride. “This is our beautiful house,” she would say to anyone who would listen, her father, Ahmed Al-Hasanat, recounted.

But two weeks after the family moved into their new home, they were forced to flee the besieged Al-Mughraqa neighborhood, said Al-Hasanat. When they returned in November, they found their apartment badly damaged by Israeli strikes. A doll belonging to Ayten lay among the rubble, peeking out from behind a broken door.

“She said, ‘Daddy, my doll died.’”

From neatly organizing letters while staying in labyrinthine tent camps, to keeping branches from family olive trees, some say they are doing all they can to keep memories alive. For many, repeated displacement means reliving the trauma of generations uprooted by al-Nakba, or “the catastrophe,” when roughly 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forcibly expelled from their homes in historic Palestine, during the creation of Israel in 1948.

Israel launched its military offensive on October 7 after the militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, attacked southern Israel. At least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others abducted, according to Israeli authorities.

Israeli strikes in Gaza have since killed more than 39,000 Palestinians and injured another 90,000, according to the Ministry of Health there.

A box of memories

Before the war, Fadi Adwan was studying for an electrical engineering degree at the Islamic University of Gaza, his dream since he was a teenager. These days, he fiddles with a navy and gray scientific calculator inside a tent in Rafah, in the south.

Israeli strikes destroyed several of the university’s buildings in the early days of the war, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

“Since I was in the 10th grade, I always had a calculator in my hands,” said the student, in his early 20s. He and his family have been displaced at least five times since October, he added. “I was thinking that we would go home after a month or so, but things were not the same in this war as previous wars.”

As her family prepared to flee, Ismail instructed her three sisters to fill a small box with their most treasured possessions. Her younger sister, Dina, contributed a necklace and some handwritten letters from close friends.

“Dr. Refaat’s voice is what keeps ringing in my head whenever I see my notes,” said Ismail. “He made us aware of the power of words and writing in delivering messages to the world, so we as Gazans will be heard.”

Cycles of displacement

Ismail wonders if she will relive the plight of her grandparents, whose lives were uprooted in 1948, when they were children. Her only living grandparent – her paternal grandma, who has Alzheimer’s disease – still remembers the horrors of al-Nakba, Ismail said.

“I hate it when I realize that I am reliving the exact wretched fate my grandparents once lived… I too will be traumatized and attached to my past life for as long as I live,” Ismail said.

Cycles of repeated displacement – without the promise of return – are embedded within Palestinian communities, according to Rochelle Davis, an associate professor of anthropology at Georgetown University.

“I used to wonder why they were leaving their homes in 1948,” said Adwan, the electrical engineering student. “But when this war happened, I understood why they left their homes; because of the horrific massacres that took place and because of the blood that was shed.”

Longing for ‘Palestine’

Small green leaves cling to a withering olive branch which 19-year-old Raghad Ezzat Hamouda took in October from a tree which had been planted by her father in their home in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza.

Having been displaced at least six times, Hamouda has preserved the branch – and a keffiyeh, the traditional scarf worn by many Palestinians, that belonged to her grandmother, Tamam – as they remind her of her “beloved homeland,” she says.

“Our ancestors were displaced by Israel in 1948, and the scene today in 2024 is repeated,” she added.

Once a marker of Palestinian life, Hamouda says her black-and-white fishnet-patterned keffiyeh is now a symbol of loss.

She said 85-year-old Tamam, a Nakba survivor, was injured when Israeli tanks opened fire as the family fled from northern to western Gaza in December. She was pushing her grandmother in her wheelchair at the time, she recalled. The teenager said her grandmother bled to death before they could get her to a hospital. “My grandmother was very affectionate and loved her grandchildren very much,” she said. “She loved to smile and gave us hope, especially during times of war.”

Along with house keys, some Palestinians will also have passports and land deeds from the 1940s testifying to pre-existing ownership of land in what is now Israel, according to Dr. Scott Webster, an academic from the University of Sydney. At least 70% of residents in Gaza are refugees, those who were displaced from their homes during the creation of Israel and their descendants, Amnesty International says.

“The house key is important because it brings with it all the memories, memories of the house and the garden around it, and the grapevines,” said Adwan, who has held onto his keys while being forced to flee multiple times, including from the besieged Al-Shifa Hospital.

“My father and mother have been working hard for 30 years to be able to build this house… It was partially destroyed in 2014. We built it again and it was destroyed again,” he said. “We are people with lives and memories… Maybe one day someone might care about our cause and help end our suffering.”

‘I am no longer me’

Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed at least 15,983 children, the Government Media Office reported on July 7.

Guardians may use personal objects – including toys – to provide emotional support for displaced children, said Davis, of Georgetown University. Meanwhile some adults hide their psychological trauma because they do not want to overload younger generations, according to Dr. Samah Jabr, a psychiatrist, psychotherapist and head of the mental health unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

For Al-Hasanat, saving Ayten’s doll from the wreckage of their home was an attempt to soothe his daughter’s psychological trauma.

“She used to always laugh and spread happiness,” he said, explaining that she has now developed anxiety-related habits.

“I want to look for a safe place for the sake of my children, and for the sake of a happy life for Ayten, who needs a lot to return to the way she used to be,” he added. “The pain is indescribable. We have become without feeling or sensation.”

Since their visit in November, Al-Hasanat said, their apartment has been completely destroyed by bombing. “Nothing remains of the house,” he said.

Ismail, the literature student, says the stress of war has made her feel like “a stranger in my own life.”

“That’s how I and all Gazans feel after being snatched out of our lives and being forced to evacuate,” she said. “I am exhausted, counting days waiting for this all to end. I feel I am no longer me.”

A group of 45 American physicians and nurses who volunteered in hospitals across Gaza have sent an open letter to US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris sharing their experiences and demanding an immediate ceasefire and arms embargo.

The signatories unanimously described treating children who had suffered injuries they believed must have been deliberately inflicted. “Specifically, every one of us on a daily basis treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head and chest,” they wrote.

“We wish you could see the nightmares that plague so many of us since we have returned: dreams of children maimed and mutilated by our weapons, and their inconsolable mothers begging us to save them. We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget.”

Many in the group have public health backgrounds and experiences volunteering in other conflict zones such as Ukraine and Iraq, according to the letter. “We believe we are well positioned to comment on the massive human toll from Israel’s attack on Gaza, especially the toll it has taken on women and children,” reads the letter posted to X on Thursday by Dr. Feroze Sidwa, who spearheaded the writing of the letter with the other physicians.

“We believe our government is obligated to do this, both under American law and International Humanitarian Law, and that it is the right thing to do,” the letter said.

The ‘only independent monitors’ in Gaza

“In Gaza, there’s no independent monitor,” he said. “If you’re not going to believe the Palestinians, then you should believe 50 doctors who’ve gone there at different times and places.”

Apart from Palestinian journalists living in Gaza, there has been no media access to the enclave since October 7, with a few exceptions of entry under official escort.

Hamawy signed the letter to recount what he saw with his own eyes. “We all saw a complete devastation of a society, of people’s lives, of health care structure,” he said.

Hamawy has worked as a surgeon in Sarajevo, in New York City on 9/11, and in Iraq, where he performed life-saving surgery on US Senator Tammy Duckworth in 2004 after her helicopter was hit by an RPG. But he said those experiences in other conflict zones were not comparable to what he had witnessed in Gaza, adding that 90% of those he had seen killed there were women and children.

Hamawy worked at the European Gaza hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis in May of this year where he performed about 115 reconstructive surgeries and treated mostly children under 14 years old. He worked on amputations, burns, and gunshot wounds to the face, he said.

Another patient was a little boy who picked up what he thought was a can of tuna to bring back to his family in Rafah, Hamawy recalled. But the metal object was in fact an unexploded cluster bomb, according to Hamawy, who said that after opening it in front of his family, the child lost his left arm, both his legs, and three fingers on his right arm.

‘No kid gets shot twice by a sniper by mistake’

The photos were sent to him by a first-year medical resident who had been forced to perform the surgery and requested Perlmutter’s expertise. When Perlmutter asked why senior surgeons hadn’t done the operation, the resident explained that they had been killed in a bombing.

Describing a hospital overrun, Perlmutter said after every bombing, he would find injured children laid across the floor, their loved ones panicking and crying.

“Some are dead, some will die in front of you, and some you can save. You try to save the ones you can save,” Perlmutter said.

He recalled two patients aged around six years old, who had suffered gunshots to their heads and chests – wounds which suggested they had been deliberately targeted, he said.

“No kid gets shot twice by a sniper by mistake,” Perlmutter said, adding that the shots were “dead center” to their chests.

As Perlmutter tried to treat the children with head injuries, he said, their “brains poured out” in his hands, in what he described as a personally traumatic moment.

‘Everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both’

Launched in response to Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel on October 7 which killed at least 1,200 people, Israel’s monthlong military offensive in Gaza has left more than 39,000 Palestinians dead, according to the Gazan Health Ministry. The letter’s signatories estimate that the true toll of the war could be in excess of 92,000, if it included deaths from starvation or disease and bodies still buried under the rubble.

Last week the World Health Organization said the polio virus had been found in sewage samples, putting thousands of Palestinians at risk of contracting a disease that can cause paralysis.

Under such conditions, the American medical workers warned that epidemics could lead to the deaths of tens of thousands more children. The displacement of people to areas with no running water or toilets “is virtually guaranteed to result in widespread death from viral and bacterial diarrheal diseases and pneumonias, particularly in children under the age of five,” the letter said.

“Everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both,” with few exceptions, their letter said. “We are not politicians. We do not claim to have all the answers. We are simply physicians and nurses who cannot remain silent about what we saw in Gaza.” the letter said.

Reporting contributed by Tala Alrajjal, Sam Fossum and Eugenia Ugrinovich.