Israel says the Michigan synagogue attacker was the brother of a slain Hezbollah commander
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The brother of the man who attacked a Michigan synagogue last week, who was killed earlier this month in an Israeli airstrike, was a Hezbollah commander, the Israeli military said Sunday.
Ibrahim Ghazali was killed in Lebanon along with three other relatives on March 5 – a week before authorities accused Ayman Mohamad Ghazali of driving his car into a synagogue outside Detroit and killing himself after security opened fire on him.
The FBI office in Detroit, which is investigating the synagogue attack, declined to comment on the Israeli army’s claims 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 in an email Sunday.
The Israeli military said Ibrahim Ghazali was a Hezbollah commander who was in charge of the army’s weapons that fired rockets into Israel.
A Lebanese official, who asked not to be identified because he cannot publicly discuss details of the airstrike, confirmed the death of Ibrahim Ghazali. The official told The Associated Press that Ghazali’s children, Ali and Fatima, and his brother, Kassim, were also killed in the strike that hit their house after sunset.
In a statement sent to the Associated Press in Beirut, Hezbollah said the brothers, Ibrahim and Kassim, were part of a local soccer team, and were targeted at home with their children, but did not publicly deny that Ibrahim was in the team.
Authorities said Ayman Ghazali, 41, attacked the synagogue after learning that four members of his family had been killed in an Israeli strike.
Israel has stepped up attacks on Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon as war with Iran has spread violence across the Middle East.
At least 12 medical workers were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Friday in a medical center in southern Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health. The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed 27 Israeli airstrikes against the health care system in Lebanon and says more than 30 medical workers have been killed and 35 injured since the start of the war. Dr. Abdinasir Abubakar, WHO representative in Lebanon, says medical workers must be protected as Israel’s war in Lebanon continues to escalate.
On Thursday, Ayman Ghazali waited in his car outside Temple Israel, near Detroit, for nearly two hours with a gun, explosives and explosives believed to be gasoline, before running over dozens of children, according to authorities.
He first fired his gun through the windshield, shooting the armed security guard. Ghazali shot himself to death after he got stuck in his car and the engine caught fire, said Jennifer Runyan, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit office. No staff or children inside the synagogue were injured, possibly due to increased security in recent months.
The FBI, which is leading the investigation, described the attack on one of the nation’s largest synagogues as an act of violence against the Jewish community. But the agency said it did not have enough evidence to call it an act of terror.
Ghazali came to the US in 2011 on an immediate relative visa as the spouse of a US citizen and was granted US citizenship in 2016, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
He lived in a one-story brick house in the Detroit neighborhood of Dearborn Heights about 60 miles south of the synagogue.
The Michigan synagogue attack happened the same day a former Army National Guard member who served years in prison for trying to help the Islamic State opened fire in a classroom at Old Dominion University in Virginia, killing one person and wounding two.
