Suspect in Michigan synagogue attack had lost family in Israeli strike on Lebanon

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/13/suspect-michigan-synagogue-attack-lost-family-lebanon
Guardian staff and agency
Fri 13 Mar 2026 09.12 EDT
Last modified on Fri 13 Mar 2026 09.41 EDT

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The armed suspect who drove a vehicle into the hallway of a large Michigan synagogue complex that includes a school had lost four family members in an Israeli airstrike in his native Lebanon just last week, an official said on Friday.

A potential mass-casualty event was averted when security guards already in place at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township on the outskirts of Detroit killed the driver before any harm could come to the synagogue’s staff, teachers and 140 children at the early childhood center there on Thursday afternoon.

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The suspect was later named by the authorities as Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, who was born in Lebanon and had become a naturalized US citizen.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is leading the investigation, described the attack on one of the nation’s largest Reform synagogues as an act of violence targeting the Jewish community.

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A local official in Mashgharah, in central Lebanon, told the Associated Press on Friday that Ghazali’s two brothers and a niece and nephew were killed at their home in the 5 March airstrike just after sunset as they were having their fast-breaking meal during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The official, who requested anonymity because he could not publicly discuss details of the airstrike, told the AP that Kassim and Ibrahim Ghazali were killed, along with Ibrahim Ghazali’s children, Ali and Fatima. Ibrahim Ghazali’s wife was seriously wounded and remains in the hospital, the official said.