The brother of Ayman Muhammad Ghazali, the alleged attacker of a Michigan synagogue, has been identified by Israeli intelligence as a Hezbollah terrorist commander. The commander, Ibrahim Muhammad Ghazali, was reportedly killed in an Israeli airstrike just days before the synagogue incident took place.
According to a statement from the Israeli Defense Forces on their X account, “Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Muhammad Ghazali oversaw weapon operations within a distinct segment of the Badr Unit.” This unit has been responsible for launching numerous rockets at Israeli civilians during the ongoing conflict.
They further added, “His brother, Ayman Muhammad Ghazali, executed the terror attack in Michigan last Thursday. Ibrahim was taken out in an Israeli Air Force strike targeting a Hezbollah military facility last week.”
Reports indicate that Ayman Ghazali, aged 41, carried out his attack a week following Israel’s airstrike on his hometown in Lebanon on March 5, which resulted in the deaths of two of his brothers and a niece and nephew.
Surveillance footage captured Ayman Muhammad Ghazali at a Phantom Fireworks store in Livonia, Michigan, where he spent over $2,000 on fireworks just days before the March 12 attack on the synagogue. This footage was obtained by the NY Post.
In a related incident, around the same time as the Michigan attack, a man previously convicted in 2016 for supporting the Islamic State fatally shot one individual and wounded two U.S. Army personnel at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. This university is known for its strong connections to the U.S. military. The attacker, who had been released from prison in 2024, was ultimately subdued and killed by students from the Reserve Officer Training Corps present in the classroom.
In Michigan, the Lebanon-born Ghazali rammed a pickup truck laden with fireworks and jugs of gasoline into Temple Israel in the Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield, sparking a fire. Ghazali fatally shot himself in the head during a gunfight with a security guard.
A fireball rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight March 10 to 11, 2026. (Fadel itani/AFP via Getty Images)
The terrorist ties to the U.S. attack put new focus on Iranian terrorist proxies of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel and Lebanon are expected to hold direct talks in the coming days, their first since the start of the Iran war that has drawn Lebanon deeper into conflict, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Saturday, citing two sources with knowledge of the matter.
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner will be involved in the talks that might be held in Paris or in Cyprus, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s confidant Ron Dermer leading the Israeli delegation, Haaretz said.
The negotiations were expected to focus on ending fighting in Lebanon and disarming the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, Haaretz said.
Hezbollah opened fire on Israel on March 2, saying it was retaliating for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader at the start of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
Israel has since launched an extensive bombing campaign against the powerful Lebanese armed group, which has killed more than 770 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more, while Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets across the border.
The IDF posted a video to X on Saturday showing “Hezbollah terrorists carrying rockets into a weapon storage facility in southern Lebanon.”
While the Badr Unit operates 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 added focus on Hezbollah retaliation against Israel and the terrorist attack in Michigan.
Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department for comment.
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