The Israeli military has determined that the brother of the man who drove his truck through a Michigan synagogue last week was a commander for Hezbollah, the terrorist group and Iranian proxy force based in Lebanon.
Last Thursday, 41-year-old Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Lebanon, rammed his vehicle into the Temple Israel synagogue in Michigan, driving through the halls before exchanging fire with security officers. His vehicle, loaded with explosives, caught fire and was jammed in the hallway, leading to Ghazali killing himself. One security guard was injured in the attack, but all children and staff at the temple’s preschool had been safely evacuated.
At the time, reports circulated that Ghazali was “devastated” after some of his family members in Lebanon were killed in an Israeli airstrike. The FBI has been investigating this reporting in relation to the attack, which they called a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community.
Now, Israeli intelligence has found that his brother, Ibrahim Muhammad Ghazali, was part of Hezbollah and was “responsible for managing weapons operations within a specialized branch of the Badr Unit.”
That unit “is responsible for launching hundreds of rockets toward Israeli civilians throughout the war,” the Israel Defense Forces said.
Ibrahim was killed last week in an Israeli strike on a Hezbollah “military structure,” the IDF added.
Hezbollah denied the connection when speaking to the New York Times but said Ghazali’s motive for the synagogue attack was revenge for his family.
Besides Ibrahim, three other members of his family were killed in the strike, including Ibrahim’s two children and another brother, Qassem, according to a Lebanese official. Ibrahim’s wife was also seriously wounded.
That strike came as Israel and Hezbollah have been warring for almost a month, resuming a conflict that began shortly after Hamas’s terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
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Hezbollah began launching missiles at Israel in solidarity with Iran, which has sustained dual bombing campaigns from the U.S. and Israel. Israel has responded with retaliatory strikes targeting the terrorist group.
Those strikes have killed over 800 people, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.