Sam recalls touring his grandfather’s olive trees each year in Taybeh, a tight-knit, rural Christian village in the West Bank northeast of Jerusalem.

He can map out his family tree on both his mother’s and father’s sides. For more than 300 years, generations of Sam’s family have called Taybeh home.

Amid the Israel-Hamas war and retaliatory attacks on the Gaza strip, the Palestinian American and Cranberry Township native said last week he is worried violence could further extend to the West Bank, where his grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles reside, and where he has spent summer after summer since childhood.

“My heart is definitely there, even though I was born here and I'm an American first,” Sam said.

A graduate of Seneca Valley School District, Sam said he has been in constant communication with his relatives overseas during the past few weeks. His relatives have described increasing Israeli settler violence on the outskirts of town, he said.

“The roads … they're being blocked right now and they're closed,” he said. “You're not allowed to travel through. There's no freedom of movement right now within the Palestinian territories in the West Bank. What (my relatives) are telling me is people who are moving are either getting beat or they're getting killed.”

About 81 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, with the Palestinian death toll climbing to 4,218, the Palestinian health ministry said Friday, Oct. 20.

“What (my relatives) are telling me is that they're scared for their life,” Sam said. “The entire Palestinian population. Even me. I'm American, and I'm thousands and thousands of miles away and have nothing to do with any of this — and I'm terrified.”

While his relatives describe life under stay-at-home orders, escalating settler violence, stories of retaliatory murders in neighboring towns and the feeling fearful while hiding in their homes to watch the news, Sam’s fear as a Palestinian American is potential retaliation for speaking out publicly in support of Palestinian human rights.

Sam, who works in the legal field, described his work industry as tense since the Oct. 7 attacks by Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist organization Hamas, which killed more than 1,400 Israelis.

Many of Sam’s co-workers have since posted political statements in support of Israel’s government on social media. Sam said he feels there is a double-standard when it comes to also speaking up in support of Palestinian civilians.

About 70% of those killed and wounded are women, children and the elderly, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

According to the United Nations, half of Gaza’s population is under the age of 18.

“The stories of Israeli civilians who were tragically killed by Hamas terrorists, everyone sees, everyone hears their names. Everyone sees their parents crying on TV, " Sam said. “And it should be talked about. It should be made headline news … at the same time, we have to humanize and we have to give even a little bit of airtime to some of these Palestinian people.”

Sam’s workplace has been silent on the issue.

“What I've been experiencing at work is heartbreaking to me, because people who look like me, people who are, really, Palestinian civilians, are not getting recognition at all for the deaths they’ve been experiencing,” he said. “It shows my workplace doesn't care about me. My co-workers don't care about me. A lot of them come out with statements on LinkedIn, mostly. They always start out their posts by saying, ‘Normally I stay away from politics,’ but then they get into how Israel has the right to defend itself … what about the Palestinian civilians?”

“The end result here should be peace,” Sam said. “What I see at the workplace ... I don't see people wanting peace.”

Sam asked that he remain anonymous for fear of losing his job or becoming the target of a hate crime.

Hate crimes are on the rise in the United States, experts say. Additionally, student groups and young professionals sharing support of Palestinian civilians and condemning Israel’s retaliatory strikes have been at risk of harassment or seeing their private information — including their place of employment, hometown and contact information of family members — leaked online.

Christine Mohamed, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Pittsburgh — which has publicly called for a ceasefire and Palestinian human rights — said she knows a Pittsburgh man who was harassed after he expressed criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and Israel’s airstrikes.

People would call his place of work trying to get him fired, she said.

Mohamed said members of her organization in other states have had to contend with federal authorities showing up at their houses.

One organizer in Harrisburg had a gun flashed at him during a rally, Mohamed said.

She said students, professors and young professionals seem to be the biggest targets when it comes to having their private information published online in retaliation — a practice known as “doxxing.“

The organization has issued a statement on its website with guidance for students targeted in response to Palestine rights advocacy.

“I think the dangers lie in the personal information, like where you live and your family members,” Mohamed said. “These are people behind screens, sharing ... your whereabouts and sensitive information that could put you in harm's way.”

Mohamed, who is not Arab, said she can only imagine the exhaustion and fear Arab Americans feel in response to retaliatory harassment.

That sentiment is not lost on Sam.

“I'm scared to broadcast my identity,” Sam said. “And it's not just me. I talked to some other Palestinian (legal practitioners). I'm generally fearful to broadcast that I'm Palestinian.”

Last week in Illinois, a landlord was charged with murder and two counts of hate crimes after attacking his Palestinian-American tenant and fatally stabbing her 6-year-old son 26 times after making anti-Muslim statements in response to the Israel-Hamas war, police said.

“It's a bad situation to be Palestinian in the U.S.,” Sam said. “It’s better just to hide (my identity) because people don't associate Palestinians with, you know, ordinary citizens. I'm trying to live my life here, you know, just trying to be like any other American, any other Butler County resident.”

In the past two weeks, private information of people signing pro-Palestine petitions has been shared online.

Law students, including a New York University student, have had job offers rescinded after sharing statements criticizing the Israeli government. Some reported getting death threats.

After a group of Harvard students penned a letter criticizing Israel, Bill Ackman, hedge fund billionaire and Harvard alumnus, asked that the university publish their names to ensure they would not be hired by other firms.

“So we’re talking about blacklisting anyone who has any views that are not the status quo, which is Israel should just destroy the Gaza strip and all Palestinians are terrorists,” Sam said.

Sam said a common misconception is that Hamas is supported by most Palestinians. An ethnic group should not be equated with a terrorist organization, he said.

“I don't support Hamas, obviously,” he said. “I think they are despicable. I think everything they did was despicable. Palestinians have been resisting Hamas. They don’t represent the will of the people. I condemn them. They don't represent me.”

“We don't like them, just as Israel doesn't like them. We're in agreement on that,” Sam said. “What we're not agreeing with is the (treatment of) Palestinian civilians.”

He urged people to see the humanity of the Palestinians killed.

Human rights groups including Human Rights Watch and the United Nations expressed concern this week over the treatment of civilians in accordance with international law.

“Of course, you have a right to self-defense. If your people get attacked, you have a right to self-defense. But where do we draw the line?” Sam said.

Kate Daher, co-founder of Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Committee, said her friends across Palestinian territories have described the humanitarian crisis as a “horror.”

The Israeli government has cut off water, food, gas and power in the area.

Daher has attended a number of rallies in support of Palestinian human rights since Oct. 7. The Palestine Solidarity Committee is protesting in support of a cease fire and for Palestinians to live in peace, dignity and justice, she said.

“We’re protesting for an end to the military occupation that Palestinians have been suffering under for 75 years,” she said.

“Every American should be concerned with how much we’re involved in war,” Daher said. “It’s an American issue. It’s all of us.”

Sam said he has refrained from discussing his heritage openly with people. When it comes to Israel and Palestine, he said he often censors himself.

Some of his friends and family have experienced discrimination because of their ethnicity, he said.

“I was called a terrorist my whole life,” Sam said.

“When Osama bin Laden was killed, I remember I came to school the next day, and people were telling me, ‘Sorry for your loss,’” he said. “They were making fun of the fact that I'm Middle Eastern.”

Sam was born in upstate New York after his parents immigrated from the West Bank in the early 1990s.

His father, a pharmacist, and his mother, who worked in the hospitality industry, came to the country for a better life, he said. The family then moved to Cranberry Township.

Sam described the palpable difference of visiting the West Bank as an American with family living in the area.

“I even recognized that (my cousins) weren't going about their day, waking up in the morning, watching TV,” he said. “They're worried about going to school and not getting shot. It's a real fear, to be scared for your life every single day. You know, even as a seven-, eight-, nine-, 10-year-old, you're taught to avoid any Israeli military, avoid basically being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I never had to worry about that growing up.”

“It's a very different experience,” he said. “The innocence of the kids, it’s taken away very quickly.”

In April, Sam was held at gunpoint at an Israeli military checkpoint while traveling between Palestinian territories. Having heard stories about people being shot at checkpoints for just taking a wrong turn, he said he feared for his life.

While the language barrier prevented him from being able to communicate with one of the two Israeli soldiers, he quickly learned he could speak English with the other soldier, who was from New York.

In what Sam described as a surreal experience, he and the Israeli Defense Forces soldier talked about New York. They talked about Brooklyn and their memories of the different neighborhoods in New York City. To relieve some of the tension, Sam said he began to joke about New York’s rat problem.

Initiating small talk felt like a matter of survival to him, he said. Though he and the soldier were both American, they had taken on completely different roles outside of the United States.

“You know, some of the Israeli soldiers are also Americans,” Sam said. “In Pittsburgh, I could be hanging out with an Israeli soldier, but when we go to Palestine, all of a sudden, they’re the soldier with guns in my face.”

Sam said he hopes to return to the West Bank once it’s safe. He hopes to one day travel freely, without any military restrictions. He said he would love to see the rest of the Palestinian territories, visit Gaza and tour Israel. As a Palestinian, Sam said he has never been able to visit the sights in Israel outside of the West Bank.

Remembering Taybeh and his relatives in the West Bank, Sam said his favorite memory is of walking past the olive trees on his grandfather’s land.

“Palestinians, at their core, they're farmers, because ... you love the land and the land does good things for you,” he said.

For acres on end, Sam’s grandfather, who is blind in one eye and can’t see well out of the other, can tell where someone’s land begins and where their land ends.

“It's a very symbolic thing,” he said. “It's very emotional. It's a very emotional attachment these people have to the land and that's why some of these people don't want to leave from Gaza either. Because in Gaza they know that if they leave, they might never come back. They might lose their houses again.”