At the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, California, Hospital Corpsman Younis Firwana, 32, treats American sailors and Marines. Two years ago, he was a Palestinian medic in Gaza City, navigating rubble-strewn streets amid Israeli airstrikes from the two-year-long war between Israel and HAMAS. Today, he holds a U.S. passport, a Top Secret security clearance, and the power to pull his family out of a war zone. Firwana’s family members’ social media feeds are overflown with tributes to Hamas terrorists. Firwana family members were also held in Israeli prisons for their participation in Islamic terrorism. Hamas is a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, making it incredibly troubling that various US resources facilitated Younis Firwana’s mother’s high-profile rescue from Gaza, raising concerns about infiltration risks, divided loyalties, and potential threats to US military security.

In one of the most shocking vetting failures ever seen, Younis Firwana’s story is a story about how one sailor’s naturalization process allowed for jihadist infiltration of the US Navy.

A recently naturalized US Navy medic, Younis Firwana, has been covertly leveraging his position to secure visas and evacuations for Palestinian family members from Gaza, where he is from. Younis Firwana, 32, joined the US Navy in 2023 as a medic and gained US citizenship upon boot camp graduation in early 2024. Stationed in California, he has actively pursued visas to relocate his Gaza-based family amid the Israel-Hamas war. 

Firwana’s journey began in 2023, immediately following October 7^th, when he was recruited under the Navy’s Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) program—an initiative that fast-tracked citizenship for immigrants with critical language or medical skills. He enlisted in the Navy as a medic and hospital corpsman, completed eight weeks of boot camp at Great Lakes, Illinois, and was granted naturalization in early 2024. Firwana’s naturalization highlights a pathway to citizenship where recent immigrants with conflict-zone and terror ties enter sensitive US military roles.

Firwana’s Arabic fluency and prior experience treating trauma in Gaza made him a prize catch for a Navy stretched thin by global commitments. Within months, he was stationed in California, drawing a salary, earning benefits, and—crucially—gaining leverage inside the U.S. immigration system and the US Navy. 

But Firwana never emotionally left Gaza.

Since he was naturalized in 2024, Younis Firwana, was focused on organizing the exit of his mother, Ahlam Firwana, 59, from Gaza via Jordan. He also requested expedited processing for his siblings’ immigration cases, but only his mother’s was approved. Despite securing US immigration clearance for her, Younis Firwana faced challenges finding someone to accompany her out of Gaza and assist with her expired passport renewal. Ultimately, Firwana linked up with the Special Operations Association of America, a veterans’ organization that has aided in the evacuation of about 1,100 individuals from Gaza since the conflict began, including the mother of US Navy Medic Younis Firwana, who was evacuated from Gaza City on September 17, 2025, in a complex operation involving US veterans’ groups and Jordanian support.

The rescue required $10,000 in donations, surveillance to avoid airstrikes, and high-level coordination, including input from the Trump administration and Morgan Ortagus, the Deputy United States Special Envoy to the Middle East, who is in the Navy Reserve. Younis Firwana even set up a Go Fund Me for his family, titled, “Please help Younis’s family evacuate from Gaza!”

Sources confirmed that Firwana has continued applying for visas for his siblings who still remain in Gaza.

Most alarming about Firwana using his position in the Navy to expedite visas and evacuations for his family members in Gaza with assistance from the Trump administration is the lack of vetting conducted by US Government officials into Firwana and his family members, who have been documenting their support for HAMAS on a family Facebook page.

A Public Firwana family Facebook group reveals the family of Younis Firwana has not only supported HAMAS’s attacks on Israel throughout the two-year war between Israel and HAMAS, but several of his Palestinian family members were released in the prisoner release orchestrated in the Trump administration’s peace deal. Additionally, posts on the family Facebook page reveal the family has had members of HAMAS in their family died while attacking Israel. Upon learning of their deaths, the Firwana family Facebook group praised the fallen HAMAS terrorists in their family as “mujahideen” and as “martyrs”, the term used for Islamic terrorists who die in acts of jihad. The Firwana Family Facebook group has 3,700 members and functions as both a grieving space and a digital shrine for HAMAS terrorists.

In one of the posts dated October 10, 2025, the Firwana Family says they have 102 “martyrs” in their family who died in the war. 

In another Facebook post on the Firwana Family Facebook page dated October 14, 2025, the Firwana family revealed that four of their family members were released in the prisoner release agreement orchestrated by the Trump administration. This “prisoner exchange” was the release of Palestinian terrorists who were being held in Israeli prisons in exchange for the 20 remaining living Israeli hostages who were being held by HAMAS. The four members of the Firwana family who were released from Israeli prisons as part of the prisoner release are:

Mohammad Faraj Khidr Farwana

Ismail Hassan Muhammad Farwana

 Mahmoud Hassan Muhammad Farwana

Hassan Mohammed Hassan Farwana

The post read:

The post referred to the Palestinians who died in battle who were not released from Israeli prisons as “martyrs”. 

On October 8th, 2025, the Firwana family posted another Facebook post confirming the evacuation of Ahlam Firwana, the mother of Younis Firwana, from Gaza. In the post, the family confirmed that her son helped get her out, that he coordinated her evacuation, and that he is living in the United States. The post also confirms that Ahlam Farwana was received by a representative from the US Embassy. 

Documented Hamas Connections

Open-source evidence on the Firwana Family Facebook page links Firwana family members to Hamas in posts about 102 Firwana family members who were “martyred” during the latest Gaza war, including glorifying some members as “mujahid,” or jihadist military fighters. The Facebook page also contains video footage of HAMAS terrorists carrying the casket of a member of the Firwana family who died while fighting for HAMAS. In the video, HAMAS terrorists dressed in their HAMAS outfits and bandanas can be seen carrying the casket of Yaqoub Hamada Firwana, a member of the Firwana family.

It is worth noting that the Firwana family spells their name “Ferwana” and “Farwana” on Facebook, likely in an attempt to avoid detection as their family member; it is telling that Younis is actively trying to get visas for his HAMAS-affiliated family members in Gaza. While “Younis Firwana” is the name he uses in the US as a member of the US Navy, the Firwana family Facebook page spells his name Younes Farwana, an obvious attempt to hide and conceal his ties to his family members, who openly praise HAMAS. The US Navy should have been more diligent in reviewing Younis Firwana’s background, as it is evident he intentionally mistranslated his name to conceal his family’s Islamic terrorist ties.

In a post dated October 15, 2025, the Ferwana Family Facebook page posted a photo tribute to Maysara Maher Firwana. In the post, he is acknowledged by the Firwana family Facebook page as a “mujahid” fighter, martyred” in the last days of the war. Social media tributes identify Maysara as a “heroic fighter” killed while fighting IDF forces in Gaza. The post also identifies his father, Maher Saleh Firwana, as a Hamas leader who spent time in an Israeli prison. 

• Even more damning, a HAMAS poster from February 2025 confirms that Yaacoub Hamada Firwana, another member of the Firwana family, was identified on a “martyrdom” poster as a member of Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades’ Khan Yunis Battalion in February 2025. He appears as #76 on the Firwana family Facebook page post of their 102 “martyrs.”

National Security Risks from US Navy Medic’s Family Ties to Hamas

Allowing for Younis Firwana to remain a naturalized US citizen and active member of the US Navy with a security clearance creates a massive national security threat for the United States.

Here are a few key points the Department of War, including Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Navy Secretary John Phelan, should consider regarding the liability created by Younis Firwana’s presence in our country and our Navy. 

• Infiltration Risk: Firwana’s rapid citizenship and Navy access, combined with his family’s extensive Hamas ties, pose counterintelligence threats. Relatives could exploit the US entry for espionage and the radicalization of US-based Muslims.

• Resource Allocation: US-facilitated evacuations for terrorism-linked families diverts assets away from other critical missions and signals weak vetting, which could potentially encourage similar instances of jihadist infiltration of the Department of War.

• Loyalty Questions: Blood is thicker than water, and Younis Firwana’s family ties to Hamas and those responsible for the October 7th terrorist attacks undermine trust in military personnel from high-risk backgrounds.

• Broader Implications: This case underscores vulnerabilities in immigration/military screening amid Middle East conflicts, risking internal threats to US forces.

To protect US service men, protect the homeland, and prevent further abuse of America’s immigration system, the Department of War must immediately suspend Younis Firwana from the Navy and they must denaturalize him, and send his mother back to Gaza. An immediate investigation must be opened into how Firwana was able to get recruited and naturalized with such open and public family ties to HAMAS. If Firwana failed to disclose his family ties to HAMAS on his immigration paperwork, it would be grounds for deportation.

The Department of War did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication. 

The post EXCLUSIVE: Trump Officials Evacuated US Navy Medic’s Hamas-Linked Mother From Gaza Despite Open Family Islamic Terror Ties appeared first on Loomered.