Engel, the former House Foreign Affairs chairman who spent decades in Congress focusing on foreign affairs and U.S. policy abroad, died at 79, according to his family.

His family said Engel died Friday at a Bronx hospital of complications of Parkinson’s disease. In a statement, the family said that during Engel’s “over 44 years in public service,” he “fought tirelessly for his constituents at home and for peace and security around the world.”

Engel entered Congress in 1988, winning his first election by defeating a 10-term incumbent on what the AP described as an insurgent, reformist platform. More than 30 years later, Engel left office after losing a 2020 Democratic primary to then-congressional challenger Jamaal Bowman, a race that was seen as a progressive upset over the party’s pragmatic wing.

Before his departure, Engel rose through the ranks of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and became chair in 2019. In that role, he was a strong supporter of Israel and, according to the AP, one of the first lawmakers to call for military intervention on behalf of Kosovo in the 1990s, when ethnic Albanians were seeking independence from Serbia.

The AP reported that the U.S.-and-U.K.-led NATO bombing campaign opened the way for Kosovo’s eventual independence nine years later. U.S. Rep. Richie Torres, a fellow Bronx Democrat, said Engel was “a fierce advocate for Kosovo and the Albanian community at a time when few others were paying attention.”

Engel also helped negotiate the Harkin–Engel Protocol, an international agreement aimed at eliminating what the AP described as “the worst forms of child labor” on cocoa farms in West Africa. And he headed the Foreign Relations Committee as it worked on the 2019-2020 impeachment inquiry into Trump, the AP said, tied to Trump’s efforts to prompt Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to seek dirt on Trump’s then-rival Joe Biden.

After Trump was impeached and acquitted in February 2020, Engel said he would not drop the issue, telling the public there were “a lot of unanswered questions that the American public deserves to know” and answers to them. The AP said attention sharpened during the COVID-19 pandemic when questions surfaced about Engel’s absence from his district after reporting by The Atlantic.

The scrutiny deepened following what the AP described as a hot mic incident in which Engel was heard trying to convince another Bronx official to allow him to speak at a news conference, saying: “If I didn’t have a primary, I wouldn’t care.” During his time in office, he also became known for waiting for hours to get an aisle seat for the State of the Union address so he could greet the president as the chief executive entered, in view of television cameras.

Engel’s seat is now held by Rep. George Latimer. Latimer said Engel’s “legacy consists of hard work on issues and kindness to all.”