October 1, 2026
WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (AP) — A man with a rifle who crashed into a large Michigan synagogue in what federal officials say was an attack had lost four family members, including two brothers, in an Israeli airstrike in his native Lebanon last week, an official said Friday.
According to a report by CBS News, the two brothers were both members of a Hezbollah rocket unit in southern Lebanon.
Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Lebanon, was killed by security after ramming into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township near Detroit and driving down a hallway in a vehicle that then caught fire, according to authorities.
The 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.
About 140 people — 106 children and more than 30 staff — were at the synagogue at the time of the attack, said Cassi Cohen, Temple Israel's director of strategic development. None of them was injured, according to Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin praised Temple Israel's private security during a news conference Friday for swiftly stopping the attack.
“If they had not all done their jobs almost perfectly, we would be talking about an immense tragedy here with children gone,” Slotkin said.
Whitmer urged Americans to “lower the rhetoric” amid what she called a rising wave of antisemitism. She said the children attending school at the synagogue were 5 and younger.
“This is targeting babies who are Jewish," Whitmer said. "That is antisemitism at its absolute worst.”
Ghazali came to the U.S. in 2011 on an immediate relative visa as the spouse of a U.S. citizen and was granted U.S. citizenship in 2016, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
An Israeli airstrike on March 5 killed four people in the town of Mashgharah, Lebanese officials reported. Israel has stepped up attacks on the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon as the war with Iran has spread violence across the Middle East.
A local official in Mashgharah told The Associated Press that Ghazali's two brothers, a niece, and a nephew were killed in the airstrike.
In the minutes after the attack, smoke billowed from the synagogue. One security officer was hit by the vehicle and knocked unconscious but did not suffer life-threatening injuries, Bouchard said. And 30 law enforcement officers were treated for smoke inhalation.
Cohen was in the hallway where the crash happened. She described hearing a loud bang and said she grabbed a few staff members, ran into her office, and locked the door.
“When I heard the crash, I knew it was bad,” Cohen said.
She said the crash happened near a classroom and, in addition to the children, there were also more than 30 staff members in the synagogue.
Rabbi Arianna Gordon, from Temple Israel, thanked the security team, law enforcement, and early childhood teachers for getting the children out safely and reunited with their parents.
About a dozen parents sprinted to get their children soon after authorities cleared the building. Other families were reunited at a nearby Jewish Community Center.
Allison Jacobs, whose 18-month-old daughter is enrolled in Temple Israel’s day care, said she got a message from a teacher saying the children were OK even before she knew what happened.
“There are no words. I was in complete and utter shock,” she said.
President Donald Trump called the attack a “terrible thing."
Oakland County is Michigan’s second-largest county with roughly 1.3 million people. The majority of Detroit-area Jewish residents live there. Temple Israel has 12,000 members, according to its website.
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This story has been updated with details on Ghazali's family.
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