DEARBORN, Mich. — Here is the face of hate — images of the Michigan shooter who tried to murder toddlers at a Jewish pre-K, law-enforcement sources told The Post on Friday, adding that his two brothers were Hezbollah terrorists killed in a recent airstrike.
A 2019 photo obtained by The Post shows Ayman Ghazali, a naturalized US citizen from Lebanon, with a blank stare, closely cropped hair and shaven face.
A second image confirmed by The Post shows him with a full beard.
Ayman Mohamad Ghazali launched a terror attack on a Jewish preschool. Obtained by NYPost
In 2019, Ghazali had been stopped by authorities when he returned to the US from overseas, with him already on their radar for his suspected ties to members of Hezbollah, sources said.
When questioned about his trip, Ghazali claimed he simply went abroad for a hair transplant.
On Thursday, Ghazali ended up ramming his car — loaded with gas canisters and homemade mortar shells fashioned out of commercial-grade fireworks — into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, according to sources and an NBC report.
Security guards opened fire on him, killing him as his vehicle burst into flames, officials said.
No children or staff were injured at the school, which is attached to a synagogue.
The attack came after two of his brothers and a niece and nephew were killed in airstrikes in their Lebanon home, a local official in Mashgharah told The Associated Press on Friday.
Ghazali was a 41-year-old naturalized US citizen who had been in the country since 2011. Obtained by NYPost
The brothers were known members of Iranian-backed Hezbollah, law-enforcement sources told The Post.
The siblings, identified as Kassim and Ibrahim Ghazali, were killed in the Israeli strike just after sunset as they were breaking fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the local official told AP.
The two dead children, Ali and Fatima, belonged to Ibrahim, whose wife was also seriously wounded and remains hospitalized, the official said.
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The official said Kassim Ghazali was a well-known soccer coach and personal trainer and that Ibrahim was a school-bus driver.
The source added that Ayman Ghazali dad had been in the US till recently, when he returned to Lebanon.
The deadly Lebanon strike occurred March 5, days after the US and Israel attacked Iran and also began bombing its terrorist buddies Hezbollah in Lebanon.
No students or staff were harmed in the attack. via REUTERS
Ghazali, a Dearborn Heights resident, was born in Lebanon on Jan. 4, 1985, according to ICE in a tweet Friday.
“He entered the United States on May 10, 2011, at Detroit Metropolitan International Airport on an IR1 immigrant visa as the spouse of a U.S. citizen after alien relative and fiancé petitions filed in December 2009 were approved in April 2010,” the immigration feds said.
“He applied for naturalization on October 20, 2015, and was granted U.S. citizenship on February 5, 2016, under the Obama administration.”
He had been on law enforcement’s radar at least since 2019, sources said.
At some point that year, Ghazali, who had been known to travel to Lebanon, was questioned by authorities in Atlanta, Ga., after coming back from an overseas trip, according to sources.
He told officials he had gone overseas for the hair transplant, sources said.
But he also had contacts on his phone of known Hezbollah members, sources said.
The FBI followed up on situation, but it’s unclear what the outcome was, sources said.
A neighbor of Ghazali’s in Dearborn Heights told The Post on Friday that the madman did not appear to be religious and didn’t attend mosque in the tight-knit community.
“During Ramadan, he’d be eating with his family and stuff like that, so I don’t think he was participating in any of that,” Chadi Zreik, 32, said of the fasting holiday.
“I’d see him barbecuing outside. and I was like, ‘Oh, it’s still early, it’s not even sunset,” so that was just my observation.”
The neighbor said Ghazali worked at Hamido Restaurant and had two young daughters.
Court records show that his now-ex-wife filed for divorce in 2024, the move finalized months later.
Zreik, who has lived two doors over from the family for the past four years, said Ghazali always “seemed super happy.” The resident was shocked when he found out Ghazali barreled into the Jewish institution.
“He must have had some mental illness or crisis that was unsolved for a long time. A person doesn’t just snap like that,” the neighbor said, speculating the bombing of his family in Lebanon might have spurred his sickening actions, as officials have speculated.
“I disavow it 100% – not that I would ever agree with this – but I can see the mental gymnastics on how he got to that point,” Zreik said.
Still, “it’s ridiculous, and it’s going to cause insurmountable blowback to this community,” he said of the attack.