Adam Hamawy, a plastic surgeon, army veteran and conflict-zone medical worker, has won a crowded Democratic primary for an open seat in the United States House of Representatives.
The Egyptian-born doctor’s victory puts him on track to represent New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, a Democratic stronghold. He will face off with Republican Gregg Mele on November 3 in the midterm elections.
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While the New Jersey primary continues a streak of progressive wins in solidly Democratic districts, Hamawy stands out from many of his peers. If elected in November, he will become the only member of Congress with firsthand experience of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Speaking to Al Jazeera in April, Hamawy recounted his experience travelling to Washington, DC, following his medical mission to the Palestinian enclave in 2024.
“[I was] talking to lawmakers and our representatives as a witness to say: This is happening there,” Hamawy recounted. “This is real. This isn’t fake news. This isn’t just on social media. I’ve experienced it, and this is what I saw in my own eyes.”
He received a mixed response. A handful of lawmakers spoke out against the war, citing his testimony. Others expressed private condemnation but did nothing publicly, and some closed their doors to any meeting with Hamawy.
“This is what prompted me to run,” he said. “We need more [elected officials] that are brave, more that will actually act upon what we know is wrong.”
As a representative, Hamawy hopes he can help steer the House to confront Israel’s genocidal war and the US role in it. “I felt I had to go to Washington to fix this myself.”
First-person experience
Congress plays an outsized role in the lives of Palestinians in Gaza, as it is tasked with approving the billions of dollars in military aid the US provides annually to Israel.
It also wields the authority to pass legislation to block arms transfers.
But while congressional visits to Israel – and, to a lesser extent, the occupied West Bank – are common, no sitting member of Congress is known to have visited Gaza in recent years.
In October 2023, Congressman Mark Pocan, who represents Wisconsin, said that no member of Congress had been allowed into Gaza “for a decade” amid Israel’s ongoing blockade of the enclave, which began when Israeli forces and settlers withdrew in 2005.
The last known visit by a sitting member of Congress, beyond closely coordinated trips to border crossings, was by Keith Ellison in 2013.
In 2018, Pocan joined two colleagues, Daniel Kildee and Henry “Hank” Johnson, in writing a letter to Israel seeking access to Gaza.
The letter explains that they had requested and been denied such access two years earlier.
The trio said they sought to “oversee the appropriate and effective use” of US taxpayer-funded humanitarian aid in Gaza through the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Since then, Republican President Donald Trump has withdrawn support for UNRWA and effectively shuttered USAID, reducing the availability of US aid for Palestinians.
Restrictions have only increased since October 7, 2023, with no journalists or outside observers allowed into Gaza without close Israeli military supervision.
In blocking outside access, Hamawy says Israel has attempted to “build a narrative … that these are bad people that we need to bomb out of existence”.
Hamawy is no stranger to conflict zones: He has participated in medical missions to Bosnia, Sudan, Haiti, Lebanon and Syria.
But he described his experience in Gaza as particularly revelatory, given the US backing for Israel’s war. He remembers seeing patient after patient permanently maimed by Israeli attacks.
“By going there and actually living it, by taking care of a child who’s come and had his arm blown off and lost his entire family, [you’re not] able to turn it off, because you have to operate on them and see them the next day,” he said. “And then you see someone else and do this consistently.”
He added that the stress of being in the war zone was overwhelming as well.
The experience involves “not being able to sleep, because you’re being bombed, like hour after hour, and have drones over your head 24/7. And you know that, at any point of time, something’s gonna happen,” he said. “You have really no control of your life at all.”
Hamawy also pointed out that, back in New Jersey, residents are struggling to pay for basic services like healthcare, while Washington continues to pay for war.
Political rise
Hamawy’s political ascension has been buoyed by several high-profile endorsements, including from Senator Tammy Duckworth, who credits the former US Army combat surgeon with saving her life when her Black Hawk helicopter was shot down in Iraq in 2004.
Duckworth had previously advocated for Hamawy when his medical mission was temporarily blocked by Israel from exiting Gaza in 2024.
He also gained a key endorsement in May from Senator Bernie Sanders, a progressive stalwart. His campaign benefitted, too, from a surge in spending by progressive groups, including millions in ad buys from American Priorities, a pro-Palestinian super PAC.
Nevertheless, the final stretch of Tuesday’s primary race also saw Hamawy face increased scrutiny over his past ties to Omar Abdel-Rahman, a New Jersey Muslim leader convicted in 1995 of inspiring attacks on the US.
Hamawy has never been accused of criminal wrongdoing. He explained he knew Abdel-Rahman through New Jersey’s Egyptian American community and emphasised that he opposes all forms of violence.
In his victory speech on Tuesday night, Hamawy said his win signalled a new “era” in US politics.
“Let me be absolutely clear with you all and everyone watching today: There was once a time when this may have worked, where racist and anti-Muslim attacks could swing an election,” he said.
“That era of American politics is over.”
