Anthony Aguilar, a retired U.S. Army Special Forces officer who gained national attention by claiming he witnessed Israeli forces kill a child at a Gaza aid site, has launched a congressional campaign in North Carolina as a Green Party candidate. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and video reviewed by The Daily Wire say key parts of Aguilar’s account were false and that the boy he identified is alive.
Anthony Aguilar, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and Green Beret, is running for the U.S. House in North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District as a Green Party candidate, according to federal election records.
Aguilar is seeking to unseat Republican Rep. Brad Knott. On his campaign website and in comments to The Daily Wire, Aguilar has cast himself as a Gaza “whistleblower,” arguing Knott is focused on partisan politics rather than the needs of working families.
Aguilar’s candidacy follows months of attention around his public account of an incident at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid distribution site. Aguilar said he encountered a boy he called “Amir” at a GHF site on May 28, 2025, and later asserted the boy was killed by Israeli forces shortly after their interaction. In interviews cited by The Daily Wire, Aguilar described telling the child, “People care. You’re a human being and people care about you,” and said the boy kissed him and said “Thank you” in English. In a July 31, 2025 appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show, Aguilar said, “I see my son’s face when I look at him,” and added, “I didn’t get this second-hand... I saw it. I touched it. I felt it,” while attributing the boy’s death to the Israel Defense Forces.
The Daily Wire reported that body-camera video from another contractor at the site did not match Aguilar’s description. The footage, as described by the outlet, shows the boy kissing the other contractor’s hand and then having only a brief exchange with Aguilar. The contractor quoted by The Daily Wire called Aguilar’s account “fabricated,” saying there was “no profound English dialog” and that the boy did not “drop his aid to kiss Tony and say ‘thank you’ to him in English.”
GHF later publicly identified the boy Aguilar labeled “Amir” as Abdul Rahim “Abood” Muhammad Hamden and said he was alive and had been moved with his family to a secure, undisclosed location. In a September 4, 2025 statement, the organization said video evidence showed Aguilar’s interaction with the child was brief and that the boy returned home unharmed.
Aguilar continued to expand his claims after questions emerged. The Daily Wire reported that in a YouTube interview published August 23, 2025, Aguilar said the boy ran into a “wall of bullets” and suffered “a shot to the torso, a shot to the leg.”
The Daily Wire also reported that NBC News removed prior reporting on Aguilar’s claims and aired an on-air correction, while Carlson had not publicly revisited Aguilar’s story as of the outlet’s February 9, 2026 report.
Separately, GHF has said Aguilar’s contract with UG Solutions, a security contractor working with the organization, ended on June 13, 2025, and that he was terminated for performance and conduct issues—an account Aguilar disputes, saying he resigned. In a September 2025 briefing about what it called a personnel matter, GHF cited messages it said Aguilar sent after his termination, including one in which he wrote, “I can be your best friend, or your worst nightmare. Stop F-ing around, put me back to work...”
In early September 2025, Aguilar was removed from a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing after shouting that the United States was “complicit in genocide,” according to video and accounts cited by The Daily Wire. The outlet reported that the committee’s chairman, Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, replied, “Off to jail.”
Aguilar’s campaign materials and outside groups have also highlighted his receipt of the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity Award. The organization’s website says Aguilar received the award in Raleigh, North Carolina, in January 2026.
In comments to The Daily Wire, Aguilar said he is running to offer a third-party option and pointed to polling he said shows “62% of Americans” want a choice outside the two major parties. He said his platform includes treating healthcare as a human right and opposing “endless war.”
