The Michigan synagogue attacker’s brother was a Hezbollah commander: Israeli intelligence
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The brother of Ayman Muhammad Ghazali, the suspect in the Michigan synagogue attack, was a Hezbollah terrorist commander who was killed in an Israeli strike days before the attack, Israeli intelligence said Sunday.
“Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Muhammad Ghazali was responsible for managing the weapons operations of the special branch of the Badr Unit,” the Israel Defense Forces wrote on Sunday morning at X. “The unit is responsible for launching hundreds of rockets at the Israeli people during the war.”
“His brother, Ayman Muhammad Ghazali, carried out the terrorist attack in Michigan last Thursday. Ibrahim was removed from the IAF strike in a Hezbollah strike last week.”
Ayman Ghazali, 41, carried out his attack a week after Israel attacked his hometown in Lebanon on March 5, killing his two brothers and his nephew, according to news reports.
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Surveillance footage shows Ayman Mohamad Ghazali inside the Phantom Fireworks store in Livonia, Michigan, where he bought more than $2,000 worth of fireworks in the days before the March 12 synagogue attack. (Courtesy of NYPost)
At the same time as the synagogue attack, a man convicted in 2016 of supporting the Islamic State regime shot and killed one person and wounded two others, US Army personnel, at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, which has close ties to the American military. The Virginia attacker, who was released from prison in 2024, was killed by Reserve Officer Training Corps students in a class that overpowered him.
In Michigan, Ghazali, who was born in Lebanon, rammed a truck carrying explosives and a tank of gasoline at Temple Israel in the Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield, starting a fire. Ghazali shot himself dead in the head during a shootout with security guards.
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A fireball rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike targeting the southern suburbs of Beirut on the night of March 10 to 11, 2026. (Fadel itani / AFP via Getty Images)
Terrorist ties to the US attack put a new focus on Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon.
It is expected that Israel and Lebanon will hold direct talks in the coming days, the first since the start of the war with Iran that has plunged Lebanon into chaos, reported the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Saturday, citing two sources with knowledge of the matter.
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will be involved in talks that may take place in Paris or Cyprus, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s confidant Ron Dermer leading the Israeli delegation, Haaretz said.
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The talks were expected to focus on ending the fighting in Lebanon and getting rid of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, Haaretz said.
Hezbollah opened fire on Israel on March 2, saying it was retaliating for the assassination of a top Iranian leader at the start of the US-Israel war against Iran.
Israel has since launched an extensive bombing campaign against the powerful Lebanese group, which has killed more than 770 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more, while Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets across the border.
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The IDF posted a video to X on Saturday showing “Hezbollah terrorists wielding rockets at an arsenal in southern Lebanon.”
While the Badr Unit was working in southern Lebanon, according to the Center for Monitoring Security Threats (CMST), the IDF did not make a direct connection between the video posted, the increased focus of Hezbollah’s revenge against Israel and the terrorist attack in Michigan.
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Fox News Digital has contacted the State Department for comment.
Reuters contributed to this report.
