DUBAI: A surgeon who treated the wounded in Gaza during Israel’s war on the enclave has won a seat in the US House of Representatives, becoming New Jersey’s first Muslim member of Congress. Democrat Adam Hamawy won the 12th Congressional District in Tuesday’s midterm elections, defeating Republican Gregg Mele. He will succeed Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who is retiring. A first-time candidate, Hamawy has said his experience in Gaza was what pushed him into politics. “Politics was never my plan,” he said in his campaign launch video in January. Born in Cairo, Hamawy was seven months old when his family emigrated to the US, according to Al Arabiya. They settled first in Jersey City before moving to Old Bridge, New Jersey, where he grew up. Hamawy studied medicine at Rutgers University and later earned an MBA there, Al Arabiya reported. He then served for eight years as a surgeon in the US Army, including a nine-month deployment with the 31st Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad during the Iraq war. In Iraq he operated on hundreds of soldiers and civilians, the New Jersey Globe reported. Among them was Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, whose helicopter was shot down in 2004. Duckworth, who credits Hamawy with helping to save her life, endorsed his campaign. Hamawy retired as a lieutenant colonel in 2011 and opened a plastic and reconstructive surgery practice in Princeton two years later, according to Al Arabiya. His medical volunteering began as a first responder after the 9/11 attacks in New York. It went on to take him to crisis zones including Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Jordan, Turkiye, Bosnia, Haiti and Colombia, Al Arabiya reported. In May 2024 he traveled to Gaza with a 19-member medical team and spent about three weeks at the European Hospital near Khan Younis. The team carried out 120 surgeries, more than half of them on children, Muslim Network TV reported. He became stranded in Gaza during that mission, according to the New Jersey Globe. He returned to Gaza in 2025, working with the Palestinian American Medical Association in coordination with the World Health Organization, Al Arabiya reported. After leaving Gaza in 2024, he met officials at the White House and on Capitol Hill to describe what he had seen. Hamawy campaigned on universal healthcare, ending US military aid to Israel, cancelling medical and student debt, and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “Healthcare not bombs,” he wrote on X after winning the primary. He won a crowded Democratic primary in June, beating 11 other candidates in a district where Democrats dominate.