A New Jersey plastic surgeon now running for Congress with Rep. Ilhan Omar's endorsement worked in a hospital in Gaza that functioned as a Hamas command center—and dismissed reports that there were terror tunnels located underneath the hospital before Hamas boss Mohammed Sinwar was killed in a tunnel directly under the hospital's emergency department.
Dr. Adam Hamawy, a former Army combat physician, did a tour of duty working at Gaza's European Hospital in May 2024, staying for roughly three weeks amid a period of intense fighting between Israel and Hamas. When he returned to the United States, he became a go-to "expert" for left-wing media outlets seeking to rebut reports that Hamas terrorists used hospitals as command centers and operated terror tunnels underneath them.
"I saw no fighters at all," Hamawy told Rowan University's student newspaper the Whit in October 2024. "I didn't see any guns in the hospital, there was no one that I could identify as a combatant. There were definitely no tunnels underground, and no command base there. And this isn’t just me, this is unanimous, everybody that's coming back, people who were at Shifa hospital, people at Nasra hospital. There's been no evidence to actually show that anyone like that was there."
He repeated the claim to the socialist magazine Jacobin shortly after his return, calling the Gaza European Hospital a "completely benign civilian hospital with no tunnels underneath it."
A year after Hamawy's visit, in May 2025, Hamas leader Sinwar, a mastermind of the Oct. 7 terror attack, was killed in a tunnel directly under the hospital emergency department, where he was leading a high-level meeting with senior Hamas terrorists. In addition to Sinwar, Hamas's Rafah Brigade commander, Mohammad Shabana, was killed in the strike, as was South Khan Younis Battalion commander Mahdi Quara, the Times of Israel reported. The New York Times was given a tour of the bombed-out terror hideout a month later, publishing a piece headlined "The Tunnel That Leads Underneath a Hospital in Southern Gaza."
The hospital was used as a Hamas command center during the Oct. 7 massacre, Israel has said.
The IDF found evidence that Hamas used the tunnels under the Gaza European Hospital to hold hostages taken during the attack, all while Hamawy worked in the facility above.
Hamawy is 1 of 13 candidates running in New Jersey's 12th Congressional District to succeed retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D.), who has held the seat in the deep-blue district since 2015. Hamawy has outpaced his competition in fundraising—he has totaled more than $540,000 in donations while his closest opponent, Sue Altman, has netted just over $400,000—and has earned endorsements from far-left figures like Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.).
Several anti-Israel organizations have also pledged their support for Hamawy. American Priorities, a new super PAC funded in large part by big-dollar donors to Mayor Zohran Mamdani's (D., N.Y.) mayoral campaign, plans to spend $2 million on his campaign. Track AIPAC, a group that accuses pro-Israel U.S. politicians of being "foreign agents," is backing Hamawy as well. And the political arm of CAIR—whose leader, Nihad Awad, said he was "happy to see" Oct. 7—endorsed Hamawy in March.
Hamawy's campaign has been a magnet for the group's cash and staffers, federal fundraising disclosures show. Dr. Manal Fakhoury, the group's national board chair, has donated $2,000. Dr. Mudusar Raza, a CAIR Maryland Advisory Board Member, donated $1,000. Hira Shaikh, a member of CAIR's New Jersey steering committee, threw in another $1,000, while Khurrum Wahid, a CAIR legal advisor, added another $500.
Hamawy's only paid staffer is Maheen Mumtaz, who lists herself on LinkedIn as his "Finance & Operations Coordinator." Mumtaz came to work on the campaign directly from CAIR, where she spent nearly two years as a government affairs associate. Hamawy has so far paid her more than $11,000, records show.
Hamawy—a plastic surgeon who specializes in botox and boob jobs—also used campaign cash to pay himself $7,900 in rent to his medical practice, Princeton Plastic Surgeons, for a campaign office, records show.
Many of Hamawy's largest donors are fellow doctors, a number of whom also spent time in Gaza during the war propping up Hamas-controlled medical facilities.
Mahmoud Sabha, who donated $3,500, also did a stint at Gaza European Hospital with Hamawy, as did Feroze Sidhwa, Azeem Elahi, and Salman Dasti, who donated $3,500, $500, and $1,000, respectively, to Hamawy's campaign.
Dr. Ayaz Pathan, who donated $2,000, spent three weeks providing services at Nasser Hospital, a facility so inundated with Hamas terrorists that the anti-Israel Doctors Without Borders was forced to abandon operations there this year due to the presence of "armed men" at the facility. Palestinian human rights activists said Hamas used the facility as a prison to torture opponents of the terror outfit.
Dr. Irfan Galaria, who spent time at Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital, donated $1,000 to Hamawy, records show. That facility was used by Hamas to hold hostages in the immediate aftermath of Oct 7. At least one was later killed inside the hospital by Hamas. A tunnel used by the terrorist group was also found underneath the hospital.
John Kahler, who has donated $2,250 to Hamawy, spent several weeks in March 2024 at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza. Its director later admitted the facility had been used for military purposes by Hamas, CNN reported, and the IDF found weapons hidden in incubators in the hospital's maternity ward.
