JOHN YANG: Tonight on PBS News Weekend, expanded ground operations and a rising death toll as Israel's war in Gaza to eliminate Hamas enters a new stage.

Then hat after the suspected killer of 18 people in Maine has found, the residents of Lewiston begin the process of healing.

And a Palestinian American family desperate to escape the fighting in Gaza and get back home.

WOMAN: It's so stressful.

My son didn't sleep at all last night.

They were bombing all over near our house and it's so scary in here.

I don't know where to go.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Good evening, I'm John Yang.

In Gaza tonight residents say they're experiencing the most intense bombardment of Israel's three-week old war and Hamas, the air and sea assault is supporting Israeli tanks and infantry carrying out increased ground raids.

And Israeli spokesman says they're targeting Hamas squads in northern Gaza that have fired rockets and Israel.

A virtual communications blackout means the only information is coming from official statements from both sides.

The Israeli military says it hasn't suffered any new casualties.

The Hamas run Gaza health ministry says that more than 7,700 Palestinians have died in the war so far, though, we don't know how many of those are Hamas fighters.

And tonight, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Israelis that the fighting which he called the Second War of Independence would be long and difficult.

Our report is from Leila Molana-Allen in Israel.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: On Saturday, dense smoke rising from airstrikes filled Gaza skyline as Israel and today to have escalated ground raids.

The Israel Defense Forces released video of what it said what its tanks entering the Gaza Strip.

In a press conference, Israeli officials called it a new phase of the war, but did not define it as a full-fledged ground invasion.

YAOV GALLATAN, Defense Minister, Israel (through translator): In the past day, we have taken a step forward and set such powerful fire against the enemy but it made the ground shake.

This was like nothing Hamas has ever experienced before LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: The Israeli side of the border remained heavily fortified.

We were here on the border with Gaza last night as the Israeli Defense Forces announced they were sending more ground troops in.

They've confirmed this morning that they did attack Gaza last night, from the air, from land and from the sea, accessing it from three points the Northeast and the northeastern corner just behind me.

This morning that operation is still ongoing.

And we can hear the sound of artillery fire coming from positions spread all across the border.

In a new video, the IDF issued another warning for Gazans in the north to leave.

REAR ADM. DANIEL HAGARI, Israeli Military Spokesperson: For your immediate safety, we urge all residents of Northern Gaza and Gaza City to temporarily relocate south.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: But airstrikes have cut off internet and phone signal in Gaza.

And Arabic not English is the main language for most Palestinians living in Gaza.

Palestinians in the West Bank, criticize the blackout.

IDREES ZAHDEH, Hebron Resident (through translator): People can't even call each other and tell each other what is going on.

Why are you censoring the media?

Show us what you are doing?

Why are you not showing the children that you killed?

Why do you kill women?

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Some Israelis also criticize the increased attacksIlan Zecharia nice Eden then is among the Hamas hostages at a gathering in Tel Aviv.

He worries she and the other captives might become collateral damage.

ILAN ZECHARIA, Uncle of Eden: We know the situation that if we put too much military pressure we could be hit our own people.

They could start butchering our people because of that.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Outside the region, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had harsh words for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a pro Palestinian rally.

RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN, Turkish President (through translator): Just as Netanyahu was a terrorist, the opposition says Hamas is a terrorist organization as well.

Shame on you.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Netanyahu said Israel held the moral high ground.

NETANYAHU (through translator): This kidnapping was a crime against humanity.

Those who are accusing our soldiers of war crimes are hypocrites and liars.

They have no morality left.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: In response to Erdgoan, Israel's Foreign Minister ordered the withdrawal of its diplomats from Turkey.

In New York City Friday, activists with the group Jewish Voice for Peace demonstrated at Grand Central Station calling for a ceasefire, the group said the NYPD arrested hundreds of protesters.

And those Jewish peace activists as well as so many others now calling for a ceasefire because of what we're seeing in Gaza.

Particularly last night as Israeli ground operations intensified that suddenly the phone and internet signal went out.

One of Gaza's main phone companies sent a text message to its customers saying we're so sorry, our towers are down.

There's nothing we can do.

We are losing connection now.

So people in Gaza, voiceless through the night, as they were under these intense bombardments, people were unable to call ambulances.

And we've heard this morning that ambulance drivers were standing at high points throughout trying to see where the explosions were.

So they could just drive directly there.

People unable to communicate with their families to see if they're all right, people this morning saying we've been digging children out of the rubble with our bare hands because we can't call the help.

Gazans now are completely voiceless.

They are unable to speak out as they are under some of the most intense bombardment we've ever seen.

And even though they're still being told to move to the south, in fact, most people can't get to the South because they have no fuel for their cars.

They can't travel and even in the south bombardment continues.

John.

JOHN YANG: Leila Molana-Allen in Tel Aviv tonight.

Thank you very much.

In Maine law enforcement officials said it was on the third search of a recycling center Friday that they discovered the body of Robert Card the suspect in the massacre of 18 people and wounding of 13.

He died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Two weapons were found with the body and a long gun was found in his vehicle.

The official said it was his family who first called police to identify him.

And while authorities are searching for a motive, they said there is clearly a mental health connection.

Former Vice President Mike Pence has dropped out of the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

His campaign has been struggling with mounting debts and dwindling cash.

He's the first major Republican candidate to quit the race which is dominated by Pence's former boss, former President Donald Trump.

The death toll on Mexico's pacific coast from category five hurricane Otis has risen to at least 39 people.

It could go even higher as search efforts expand.

The storm intensified so rapidly that officials made few preparations before the storm came ashore on Wednesday.

Aid has been slow to arrive and Acapulco is still without electricity, water and gasoline.

And two down one to go.

The United Auto Workers Union and Stellantis reached a tentative agreement today that could end a six-week strike.

The deal follows the pattern set by the agreement reached Wednesday with Ford.

Meanwhile, talks continue with General Motors.

Still to come on PBS News Weekend, an American family trying to escape the war in Gaza.

And how one company tried to keep secret the dangers of using its breathing machines.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: The residents of Lewiston, Maine woke up this morning without a Shelter In Place Order in effect.

Now that the suspected gunman has been found dead the city can focus on coming together to mourn, to support each other, and to try to start to heal.

Earlier today I spoke with Kristen Cloutier, a main state lawmaker who represents the area and a former mayor of Lewiston.

I asked her how she was feeling the day after the manhunt ended.

KRISTEN CLOUTIER (D) Maine State Legislator: A sense of relief, that the person that you know, perpetrated this awful act of violence is no longer at large and a sense of relief that I think we now get to be together to mourn the loss of the most lives in our community.

But also this is sort of just the beginning I think in terms of healing and, you know, trying to get ourselves past the horror of this and that is sort of where the work begins.

JOHN YANG: I'd like to ask you because I think so many people, this is the first time maybe the first time they're hearing about Lewiston, Maine.

How would you describe it to people?

What do you want people to know about Lewiston beyond this incident?

KRISTEN CLOUTIER: So I grew up here, and I'm raising my own family here, it's a place that I left and then came back to, it is gritty.

So it's a very genuine community.

We have a very elite liberal arts institution here, but it is definitely not a college town.

I think that because of the grit of this place, it's an old mill town that's been partially revitalized.

And it's very New England.

And so we call Maine a small town.

Lewiston is truly that.

And everyone here knows each other.

In times like this, I've never lived in a place that really sort of comes together and works as a community to sort of rebuild.

JOHN YANG: And because as you say, it's a very small town, everyone seems to know each other.

I would imagine the impact of this is so much greater that everyone either has a direct connection or know someone who has a direct connection, talk a little bit about that about how it's affected the community.

KRISTEN CLOUTIER: I think there was a lot of uncertainty because the names of the victims hadn't been released.

Once they started releasing names, I feel like there was this additional rush of emotion because people weren't connecting themselves with folks.

And I think even if you didn't know somebody directly, you didn't know somebody through like a first or second degree of separation.

And so I think that that's been really hard.

But I do also think that is sort of what's going to bring us together around remember remembering the lives that we've lost and celebrating those lives.

So there's a lot of grief here but I think that there will also be a lot of celebration and remembering those folks.

JOHN YANG: You talked about the try to come together to heal what sorts of ways would you like to see the people of Lewiston come out to support the families of those who died support the wounded and quite frankly, support each other?

KRISTEN CLOUTIER: Yeah, so there are things that have already been planned.

One of those things is light up Lewiston, so everyone either puts their Christmas lights out early or turns their porch light on or puts candles in their window to really memorialize those lives that were lost.

And then Sunday tomorrow, there is a big community vigil that's being held locally, one of the other area high schools had Lewiston sort of printed onto their football field.

So there's just been this real outpouring of support from other communities.

And then just a real effort for us all to sort of come together, be together and share in our in our grief and mourn those folks.

JOHN YANG: And you say this is the first step toward healing.

How long do you think that process is going to take?

KRISTEN CLOUTIER: A long time.

I mean, I think about losing individual family members, personally.

I mean, the grieving process, I feel like is probably lifelong.

And so there's been a long road ahead of us, I would say.

JOHN YANG: But do you feel that Lewiston can come back to some semblance of normality that will, you don't want to forget this, but you want to move beyond it?

I would imagine.

KRISTEN CLOUTIER: Yeah, I mean, it will be I think it's really important for us to take the time to reflect and to process everything that's happened.

And I think the reality will be different on the other side of this, but I think that the grit and determination that makes this that gives this town a sense of place is exactly what is going to get us through JOHN YANG: State representative and former Lewiston mayor Kristen Cloutier.

Thank you very much and our condolences to you and everyone in Lewiston for this horrific loss.

KRISTEN CLOUTIER: Thank you.

JOHN YANG: Israel's intensified assault on Gaza comes even as an estimated 600 American citizens are still trying to leave.

They want to use the Rafah Border Crossing in southern Gaza to enter Egypt.

Well, Egypt and Hamas are allowing trucks delivering aid to Gaza to use the crossing.

They're still refusing to let foreign nationals use it to leave.

Tonight, Nick Schifrin brings us the story of an American mother and her three small children who are trapped in Gaza and the husband and father who anxiously awaits them at home.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The Okal family was never supposed to be here.

Eight year old Iyad, two month old Elias and two year old sister Nadine.

They were never supposed to be on the move again running from Israeli airstrikes.

Their mother 32-year-old Haneen helps load the car to move homes for the fourth time in three weeks.

We filmed this on Thursday, before Gaza's internet was cut.

HANEEN OKAL, American-Palestinian Stuck in Gaza: It's so stressful.

My kids are so scared.

Very terrified.

My son didn't sleep at all last night.

They were bombing all over near our house and it's so scary in there.

I don't know where to go.

NICK SCHIFRIN: In the car, Iyad looks into the camera.

His eyes wander but he cannot escape this crisis.

The stare of a boy who has seen too much, who's been forced to grow up too fast.

The airstrikes chased them from their family home in northern Gaza and then Gaza City, or some neighborhoods are now Moonscapes.

An IDF warning drove them further south to Khan Yunis and then Rafah, Gaza's border with Egypt.

In the car, Haneen call comforts her baby.

But there's no comfort in children who are old enough to understand.

IYAD OKAL: It's sad.

And I just don't know who to describe it.

It's like all damaged and destroyed and all bombed.

God may help us.

The American citizens can get it as soon as possible.

And we can go to Rafah border.

And that's my wish.

That's my wish to Biden.

NICK SCHIFRIN: It wasn't that long ago that Iyad's wish was to play better Mozart, or share how his heart will go on with his 86,000 followers on Instagram.

Or just spend the day with his dad, Abdulla.

The family lives 5,500 miles away in New Jersey, other than the youngest, they were all born in the US.

IYAD OKAL: I feel sad that I can't see my dad.

I miss him so much.

He missed me.

ABDULLA OKAL: It's very hard.

When they tell you when your kids keep on telling you come get us, come get us and you can do anything to them.

I feel like broke, broken.

NICK SCHIFRIN: We spoke to Abdullah on Friday night here in the U.S. as Israeli ground forces increased incursions into Gaza.

ABDULLA OKAL: When they go on the ground it will be very ugly.

It will be a bloodbath.

So now it makes me worried more worried, you know, more scared.

There's no food, no water, no electricity.

I don't know how long they're going to survive.

If they don't die from a bomb, they will die starving.

NICK SCHIFRIN: When your son asks you to meet him to take him out.

What do you tell him?

ABDULLA OKAL: I tried to make up stories.

I don't mean no -- I'm trying to get an airline ticket for you guys.

There is no airline tickets.

Basically, I'm lying to him.

I can't.

I don't want to tell him.

Hey, you're an American citizen and our government cannot evacuate them.

But they can send bombs.

NICK SCHIFRIN: At first Western officials say Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi resisted opening Rafah.

ABDEL FATTAH EL-SISI, Egyptian President: I need to stress the importance of not allowing Palestinians to be displaced from Gaza into Sinai.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But now U.S. officials insist it is Hamas, who's preventing Americans from leaving Gaza.

The U.S. government says it's Hamas that is blocking people like your family from getting through to Egypt.

ABDULLA OKAL: No one stopped them from going to the crossing border.

So I need explanation.

I need to know if they say in Hamas.

When I go ask my wife and ask others, they say no, nobody's stopping them.

I spoke with the State Department they call every other day to get the updates from me.

I am - - I supposed to get the update from them.

NICK SCHIFRIN: These are the most recent videos that Abdulla has of his family.

He hasn't been able to reach his wife since Friday morning.

ADBULLA OKAL: And she's hopeless.

She thinks that we're not going to meet again.

I wish if the border open, I'm willing to go and stay with them.

At least either we live together or we die together.

But this is what we've gone through.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Abdulla calls his family homeless, but it is he too who feels homeless without them.

For the PBS News Weekend, I'm Nick Schifrin.

JOHN YANG: CPAP stands for continuous positive airway pressure.

And that's what CPAP machines used to help about 8 million Americans with sleep related breathing disorders like sleep apnea, keep their airways open while they sleep.

But as Ali Rogin tells us one company that makes the devices is coming under fire for a critical change it made to millions of its breathing machines.

ALI ROGIN: It started with an irritating rattling noise more than a decade ago keeping people up at night.

Soon after the medical supply company Philips Respironics made a decision to redesign its top selling breathing machines, including CPAP, machines and ventilators.

The company packed industrial foam into the machines to help stop the noise.

But Philips quickly started getting reports from users of the machines complaining of black particles, or dirt and dust showing up inside the devices.

A joint investigation published last month from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and ProPublica found that for more than a decade, Philips withheld over 3,700 complaints about these machines from the Food and Drug Administration.

The devices were eventually recalled in 2021.

But a number of users develop new illnesses, including cancer and asthma.

Michael Sallah is a reporter and investigations editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, thank you so much for joining us.

How did you begin this investigation?

MICHAEL SALLAH, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: You know, it's like anything the all of this started with us?

Yeah, somebody says, Look, you might want to look in federal court.

There are people slowly filing lawsuits, death cases, cancer, respiratory ailments, kidney failures.

And we did we started looking at the first of all the complaints, but then digging deeper and looking at the records.

And in the course of time, they developed these machines that people were getting sick and in some cases, their loved one say they died as a result.

ALI ROGIN: We recently spoke with somebody who used one of these machines.

His name is Mark Edwards, and he recently joined a lawsuit against Philips.

And I want to play you some sound from what he said about his experience.

MARK EDWARDS: I noticed when I was first using my new machine what we saw like black specks, white specks, it just went from like pure, distilled water to look and like water you would see in like a polluted Creek.

The walls on my lungs are shot now.

So they'll never work again.

I can't get a lung transplant because nobody will be wanting transplanting your lung into a infected area where it's just going to go bad.

ALI ROGIN: Michael, does that track with the story you heard from others?

MICHAEL SALLAH: Yeah, it starts with all those debris and the contamination inside these devices.

You have to understand Ali.

These are devices that are supposed to deliver clean air to people with already compromised conditions.

And then all of a sudden now they're getting volatile organic compounds, formaldehyde-phenol in particulate matter and in fumes in their breathing acidic night, so there's hours at a time.

ALI ROGIN: What was known about the compounds that make up this foam prior to them adding it to this machine.

I mean, it's used in other products, right?

MICHAEL SALLAH: Yeah, that's used in pillows and mattresses and sofas.

They used the wrong foam.

They used to foam to basically reduce the sound, you know, these can get very loud at night, people were trying to sleep.

So they put it in this foam to help reduce the vibrations and the noise.

But unfortunately, a phone breaks down under a process called hydrolysis, heat and moisture.

And it gives off these little black particles.

It also fumes into the mask.

So sleeping patients.

ALI ROGIN: What did Philips know about the dangers of these machines?

And when did they know it?

MICHAEL SALLAH: Well, we know this, the first few complaints started coming in to Philips around 2011, 2010.

That was just a year or two after they started inserting the phone in all their models, both the ventilators and the CPAPs.

So they're already getting the complaints coming in by 2015.

We have emails between Philips engineers and the foam suppliers saying he wouldn't give here we have potentially a health problem.

It still didn't stop them from making the machines.

In fact, during COVID they went into overdrive, advertising and aggressively marketing these it health fairs from Vegas to Dubai.

ALI ROGIN: It's stunning.

How did they get away with this for so long?

MICHAEL SALLAH: This is a great question.

We believe that the FDA was also getting some of the complaints even though Philips held back most of them.

Some are actually reaching the regulatory agency.

They still have not taken any disciplinary actions or penalties against the company.

There is a Department of Justice investigation.

It is criminal in nature.

And the subpoenas have been going out for months now.

ALI ROGIN: And what is the status?

Where does that DOJ investigation stand?

I also know that families across the country are suing Phillips in federal court in western Pennsylvania there are more than 700 plaintiffs and thousands of more who have filed claims.

What are the status of those procedures as well?

MICHAEL SALLAH: There still ongoing.

Those will be winding through the courts for a while there was a big settlement on the economic damages.

So the company agreed to pay $479 million last month to pay people for buying the defective machines.

But the other big cases, the bigger ones are still pending.

This is going to be another one of those where this will be tracked and evaluated for years to come.

For people that were on these machines for years.

ALI ROGIN: Michael Sallah with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, thank you so much for breaking this down for us.

MICHAEL SALLAH: Glad to be here.

Thanks.

JOHN YANG: And that is PBS News Weekend for this Saturday.

I'm John Yang.

For all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us.

See you tomorrow.