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Adam Hamawy, a doctor who served in Gaza amid the genocide, won a New Jersey congressional primary on Tuesday, demonstrating the continued impact of the Palestine solidarity movement on U.S. politics.
Egyptian-born Hamawy beat 11 other Democrats and will be the Democratic candidate on the ballot for New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District. The winner of the Democratic primary is expected to easily win a seat in Congress in November.
Hamawy’s campaign focused on ending U.S. aggression in the Middle East and a call to abolish ICE.
“You’ve heard throughout this race that I said over and over again: health care, not bombs; to abolish ICE; and to unrig this economy,” he told supporters on Tuesday night — echoing the calls of the Palestine solidarity movement and immigrant justice advocates. Hamawy also supports ending U.S. military aid to Israel.
“They are solutions to a crisis that was born out of a broken and rigged political and economic system – a system that floods money overseas to bomb children’s schools, while at the same time says that child care here in America is pie in the sky,” he explained.
Hamawy worked as an army combat doctor during the Iraq War in 2004 and 2005. He has also participated in numerous medical missions: to Bosnia, Sudan, Haiti, Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza.
Hamawy participated in medical missions to Gaza in 2024 and 2025, which he credits as part of the reason he ran for office.
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In an interview with Mondoweiss, Hamawy said, “over the last two years, I’ve been to Gaza twice and the West Bank. What I witnessed there really compelled me to get more involved. I’ve seen war before; I’ve been to Iraq. I know the horrors of war, but what I witnessed was a genocide. I saw more children and civilians blown up than ever in my life. It was so horrible that when I came back, I felt it was my obligation to go to Congress and speak about what I had seen. These are American bombs that are being dropped. These are our taxpayer dollars that are being used.”
After the medical mission, “I felt I had to go to Washington to fix this myself,” he told Al Jazeera.
The medical mission – organized by the World Health Organization and the Palestinian American Medical Association – was temporarily blocked by Israel from exiting Gaza. When other foreign medical workers were eventually evacuated from the Strip, Hamawy and two other doctors refused to leave, demanding more medical workers be let into the enclave.
In the days before the primary race, media reports smeared Hamawy as tied to Islamic extremists because of his testimony in a 1995 trial for Omar Abdel-Rahman, a New Jersey-based religious leader who was convicted of inspiring terror attacks. Hamawy has said that he knew Abdel-Rahman through the local Egyptian American community, that he opposes all forms of violence, and that smears against him are simply Islamophobia.
“There once was a time where this might have worked, when racist and anti-Muslim attacks would have turned an election,” he said upon winning the primary. “But tonight we proved that this era of American politics is over.” This was also the case with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s race in 2025 — while the Islamophobic attacks on him in the period prior to the election would have made his win unlikely in the past, the shift is likely due to the impact of the Palestine solidarity movement since Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The Institute for Middle East Understanding, which supported Hamawy’s race, wrote on X that “Voters were drawn to Dr. Hamawy’s candidacy because he knows firsthand the reality of Israel’s genocide in Gaza like few do – having worked to save the lives of Palestinian children under bombardment and unimaginable conditions.”
Yet while Hamawy is likely to win a seat in Congress in November and perhaps join the “Squad” of progressive lawmakers, there are serious obstacles to changing U.S. policy on Palestine from within the halls of Congress. In fact, Hamawy’s election comes as Biden-era advisors who helped engineer Israel’s genocide in Gaza are reportedly regrouping to shape the Democratic Party’s approach to Palestine ahead of the next presidential race.
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