The armed man who rammed his truck into a Reform synagogue in Michigan on Thursday has been identified as 41-year-old Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a naturalized citizen born in Lebanon, US federal officials said Friday.
Multiple reports, as well as a statement from the mayor of Dearborn Heights, who said he was a resident, said that several of Ghazali’s Lebanese relatives were killed in an Israeli airstrike recently, amid the renewed fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah terror group.
Security guards opened fire on Ghazali after he smashed a truck through the doors of the Temple Israel synagogue and preschool in West Bloomfield, near Detroit.
According to the US Department of Homeland Security, Ghazali came to the United States in 2011 on an IR1 immigrant visa, given to spouses of US citizens, and was granted US citizenship himself in 2016.
Ghazali worked at a popular restaurant in Dearborn Heights, Hamido, but had been absent in recent weeks, fellow employees told The New York Times. Coworkers and a neighbor praised him to the Detroit Free Press, with the neighbor saying she had planned to bring him flowers because his brother had died.
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He was divorced and had at least one child, according to The Detroit News, which cited court records. The newspaper reported, citing two people familiar with the investigation, that at least four of Ghazali’s relatives, including a sibling, “had been killed days earlier in a military strike in Lebanon.”
Dearborn Heights Mayor Mo Baydoun said in a statement that this month, “he lost several members of his own family, including his niece and nephew, in an Israeli attack on their home in Lebanon.”
Law enforcement respond to a call at Temple Israel synagogue, Thursday, March 12, 2026, in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan (AP Photo/Corey Williams)
At a news conference Thursday evening, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said no synagogue staff or children were hurt in the attack, but 30 law enforcement officers were “taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation” after the evacuation efforts. Earlier, he said one security guard was injured by the assailant’s truck.
The FBI will investigate the incident “as a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community,” Jennifer Runyan, special agent in charge of the federal agency’s Detroit field office, told reporters Thursday. Law enforcement has not yet publicly detailed a motive.
CBS News cited a source in Michigan’s Lebanese-American community who said that in the wake of the strike, Ghazali stopped working and spent his time alone at home. According to the source, who has long known Ghazali, the strike killed two of Ghazali’s brothers and two of their children, and severely wounded one of his sisters.
The same source said that prior to the synagogue attack, Ghazali called his ex-wife. The conversation reportedly left her concerned, and she called the police afterward.
According to the source quoted by CBS, the strike in Lebanon took place roughly 10 days before Ghazali carried out the synagogue attack, which would place the event on March 3 or 4.
Law enforcement respond to a call at Temple Israel synagogue, March 12, 2026, in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Israel has been carrying out extensive airstrikes targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Israel Defense Forces has pushed further into the south of the country on the ground, after the Iran-backed terror group started firing hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel on March 2, in response to US-Israeli attacks on Iran.
Mayor condemns attack, does not mention antisemitism
In his statement posted to social media late Thursday, Dearborn Heights’s Baydoun wrote: “Earlier today, we learned that the individual responsible for the incident that took place at Temple Israel Synagogue in West Bloomfield was a resident of Dearborn Heights. He died at the scene.”
“No matter where violence occurs, whether in West Bloomfield or anywhere around in the world, harm against innocent people is something we must all stand firmly against,” he said, adding: “The tensions we see across the world too often find their way into our own neighborhoods, reminding us how deeply connected our shared safety is.”
Baydoun urged residents to “stay aware and vigilant, especially as we gather during these sacred final days of Ramadan,” the Muslim holy month.
It was the second statement issued by the mayor since the attack. Both made reference to houses of worship, including “the impacted congregation,” and noted that the event took place at a synagogue. Neither statement made any explicit reference to antisemitism.
According to a report in local Detroit media from 2024, Baydoun himself also lost relatives — a family of five — in Lebanon as a result of an Israeli airstrike during the previous round of Israel-Hezbollah fighting, which started when the terror group began attacking Israel on October 8, 2023. That round ended with a ceasefire agreement in November 2024.
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