Police tape hangs outside the Temple Israel synagogue Friday, March 13, 2026, in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. (AP Photo)
The Israel Defense Forces has claimed that the man who attacked a synagogue in Michigan was the brother of a Hezbollah commander killed earlier this month in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon.
Israeli officials said Ibrahim Ghazali was killed in a March 5 strike along with several relatives. Authorities allege his brother, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, carried out the attack a week later at Temple Israel, West Bloomfield Township, Michigan, USA, near Detroit.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation office in Detroit, which is investigating the incident, declined to comment on the Israeli military’s claim about Ibrahim Ghazali.
“Out of respect for the ongoing investigation, we will continue to refrain from commenting on its substance,” FBI spokesman Jordan Hall said.
Israel’s military alleged that Ibrahim Ghazali served as a Hezbollah commander responsible for managing weapons for a unit that launched rockets toward Israel.
A Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Ibrahim Ghazali was killed in the airstrike. The official said the strike also killed his children, Ali and Fatima, and his brother Kassim when their home was hit shortly after sunset.
In a statement to The Associated Press in Beirut, Hezbollah said Ibrahim and Kassim were a local soccer referee and a scout member who were killed with their children at home. The group did not directly address Israel’s claim that Ibrahim Ghazali was part of Hezbollah.
U.S. authorities said Ayman Ghazali, 41, allegedly carried out the synagogue attack after learning that four members of his family had been killed in the Israeli strike.
According to investigators, Ghazali waited in his car for about two hours outside the synagogue with a rifle, commercial-grade fireworks and containers of liquid believed to be gasoline before driving into the building.
Authorities said he fired through the windshield and exchanged gunfire with an armed security guard. Ghazali later died after fatally shooting himself when his vehicle became stuck and caught fire, said Jennifer Runyan, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office.
No one inside the synagogue was injured, which officials credited to increased security measures in recent months.
The FBI described the incident as an act of violence targeting the Jewish community but said investigators do not yet have sufficient evidence to formally classify it as terrorism.
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Ghazali entered the United States in 2011 on an immediate relative visa as the spouse of a U.S. citizen and became a naturalized citizen in 2016.
He lived in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, USA, about 40 miles south of the synagogue.
The attack occurred on the same day as another shooting in the United States, when a former National Guard member opened fire inside a classroom at Old Dominion University in Virginia, killing one person and injuring two others.
