Family Members of Michigan Synagogue Attacker Died in Airstrike in Lebanon

The man, a U.S. citizen born in Lebanon, lost family members during an airstrike there last week. The attack on a Michigan synagogue rattled Jewish communities across America.

The man who rammed his truck into a Michigan synagogue on Thursday killed himself during a firefight with security guards, after his vehicle became lodged in a hallway during the attack, law enforcement officials said on Friday.

The vehicle was loaded with fireworks, and the engine apparently caught fire during the gunfight, Jennifer Runyan, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I. office in Detroit, said at a news conference on Friday evening.

The attacker, identified by federal officials as Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a 41-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen born in Lebanon, lived in Dearborn Heights, Mich., which is home to a large Muslim community about 20 minutes from the synagogue in West Bloomfield Township. Both towns are suburbs of Detroit.

Mr. Ghazali lost four relatives in an airstrike in Lebanon last week, according to a Lebanese official, who said he knew the family. A Dearborn Heights mosque held a memorial for Mr. Ghazali’s slain family members on Sunday, according to its imam, Hassan Qazwini of the Islamic Institute of America.

Mr. Qazwini performed the service but said he did not know Mr. Ghazali personally.

The attacker had “no criminal history and no registered weapons,” and had never been the subject of an F.B.I. investigation, Ms. Runyan said, refusing to speculate about his possible motives. He sat in his vehicle that was parked outside of the synagogue, Temple Israel, for about two hours before driving into the building.

He was still in the vehicle when he exchanged gunfire with at least two security officers inside, she said. “At some point during the gunfight, Ghazali suffers a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head,” she added. No one else was killed, and some 140 students and their teachers were evacuated from the building without injury.

One security guard who was injured after being struck by the vehicle is expected to recover. And more than 60 police officers went to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation from the burning truck, said Sheriff Michael Bouchard of Oakland County, who is leading the local law enforcement investigation.

The episode heightened fears among Jews in Michigan and across the United States. A wave of rising antisemitism in America has been exacerbated by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which has extended into attacks by Israel on Lebanon in an attempt to root out the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

It also prompted anxiety for members of the area’s large Arab community, who braced for extra scrutiny after they learned that the attacker was from Lebanon. “This tragedy comes at a time when communities everywhere are confronting rising hate and senseless violence,” said Mayor Mo Baydoun of Dearborn Heights, where the attacker worked at a popular Mediterranean restaurant.

Mayor Baydoun said in a statement late Thursday that Mr. Ghazali had lost several members of his own family, including his niece and nephew, in an Israeli attack this month, though the source of his information was unclear. But it matched what an official in Lebanon and Imam Qazwini told The New York Times on Friday.

The Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals, said Mr. Ghazali’s brother, Ibrahim, and his two children, as well as another brother, Qassem, were killed in a strike on their three-story building. Ibrahim’s wife was seriously wounded and is in a hospital, the official said.

Lebanon’s health ministry said that an Israeli airstrike had killed four people and injured a woman in the eastern town of Mashgharah on March 5, according to reports by The Associated Press.

Officials described the attack as a clear indication of rising antisemitism. Temple Israel is one of the country’s largest Reform houses of worship and the largest in metropolitan Detroit. “It was hate, plain and simple,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan said on Friday. “We will fight this ancient and rampant evil.”

Temple Israel includes a nursery school and a religious school for children in prekindergarten to 12th grade. The classrooms are in another part of the building from where the ramming occurred, officials said.

Cassi Cohen, 50, a director at the synagogue, was in the building’s administrative offices during the attack. “We heard a really loud crash,” she said. “We saw debris flying everywhere, and heard a bang. We knew we had to get out of there.”

Mr. Ghazali came to the United States in 2011 on a visa for foreign-born spouses of U.S. citizens, the Department of Homeland Security said. He became a citizen in 2016.

Chadi Zreik, 32, a neighbor of Mr. Ghazali, said that news of the attack spread quickly, appalling residents of Dearborn Heights. “And now there’s going to be blowback on our community,” he said. “Anytime anything happens in this community, it’s under a microscope.”

Mayor Baydoun said in his statement that “everyone deserves to worship in peace, and we must unequivocally condemn any attack on a house of worship or the people within it.” He added, “The tensions we see across the world too often find their way into our own neighborhoods.”

Oralandar Brand-Williams contributed reporting. Georgia Gee contributed research.

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