Adam Hamawy has seen death, devastation and the effects of hate on others for decades – as a first responder after the September 11 attacks, while serving in Iraq as a United States military surgeon, and more recently, on trips to Gaza while it has suffered under Israel’s genocide. On Tuesday, he stood in front of supporters in Plainsboro, New Jersey, celebrating “hope” that he said he had gleaned from some of those victims of violence. It was the culmination of a winding path into politics for 56-year-old Hamawy, a US Army veteran and reconstructive surgeon who was one of eight Muslim Americans to win election races on Tuesday night, as Democrats took commanding control of both chambers of the US Congress.
Hamawy entered politics after participating in medical missions to Gaza in 2024 and 2025, experiences he said made it impossible for him to return to normal life. He campaigned for New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District on a platform of “healthcare not bombs”, pledging to challenge a system that “funds genocide [in Gaza] while trapping us all here in medical debt”. But Hamawy’s bid for the House of Representatives was met with a wave of attacks that he described as “anti-Muslim”, as well as scrutiny over his past association with a sheikh later convicted of seditious conspiracy.
To every Muslim child who’s been told that you don’t belong: You belong,” he said. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) welcomed Hamawy’s victory, along with those of other “principled candidates”. Raised in Old Bridge, New Jersey, Hamawy completed his undergraduate studies at Rutgers University and earned a medical degree from New Jersey Medical School.
He later joined the New Jersey National Guard and worked as a combat trauma surgeon for the US Army, including on a nine-month deployment to Baghdad, Iraq in 2004. It was there that Hamawy treated now-Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, who at the time was a US Army helicopter pilot. Duckworth was badly injured when her helicopter was shot down by Iraqi fighters in November 2004, and says Hamawy saved her life and one of her limbs.
The Illinois senator was the first serving US congressperson to endorse Hamawy back in January, calling him a leader with the courage to “speak truth to power” and “willingness to call out injustices at home and abroad”. Hamawy retired from the army with the rank of lieutenant colonel in 2011. In the years leading up to and following his retirement, he put his medical skills to use in numerous humanitarian missions abroad, including treating victims of war and disaster in Haiti, Jordan, Lebanon and Gaza.
During Hamawy’s first mission to Gaza in 2024, he said the level of destruction was unlike anything he had ever seen before. This is just like complete, utter destruction,” said Hamawy in an interview from the enclave, adding that he could only define what was happening there “as a genocide”. Hamawy refused to be evacuated until he was assured non-American members of his team would also be able to leave.
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