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Israeli intelligence has disclosed a significant connection between the recent Michigan synagogue attack suspect and a slain Hezbollah commander. The attacker, Ayman Muhammad Ghazali, is reportedly the brother of Ibrahim Muhammad Ghazali, a Hezbollah leader who was killed in an Israeli airstrike just days prior to the incident.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) shared on social media that Ibrahim Ghazali held a critical role within Hezbollah, overseeing weapons operations in a specialized division known as the Badr Unit. This unit is notorious for launching numerous rocket attacks targeting Israeli civilians during times of conflict, according to the IDF’s statement.
Ayman Ghazali, aged 41, reportedly executed his attack shortly after the bombing of his hometown in Lebanon by Israeli forces on March 5. This strike tragically resulted in the deaths of two of his brothers, as well as his niece and nephew, as reported by various news outlets.
In the days leading up to the synagogue attack on March 12, surveillance footage captured Ayman Ghazali in a Phantom Fireworks store located in Livonia, Michigan. During this visit, he spent over $2,000 on fireworks, a detail unveiled by the New York Post.
Surveillance footage shows Ayman Mohamad Ghazali inside a Phantom Fireworks store in Livonia, Michigan, where he purchased more than $2,000 worth of fireworks days before the March 12 synagogue attack. (Obtained by NYPost)
Around the same time as the synagogue attack, a man convicted in 2016 on a federal charge of providing material support to the Islamic State fatally shot one person and injured two others, both U.S. Army personnel, at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, which has close ties to the U.S. military. The Virginia attacker, who had been released from prison in 2024, was killed by Reserve Officer Training Corps students in the class who subdued him.
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.