IDF confirms: Brother of terrorist behind attempted Michigan synagogue attack was Hezbollah commander

The brother of the terrorist who attempted to attack a Jewish synagogue and school in Michigan last week was a commander in the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, the Israel Defense Forces revealed on Sunday.

Earlier reports suggested that the death of some family members of the Michigan attacker, Ayman Muhammad Ghazali, at the hands of Israel was part of the motivation for the attack.

Now, the IDF confirmed earlier reports that his brother, Ibrahim Muhammad Ghazali, served as a commander in Hezbollah and was “managing weapons operations within a specialized branch of the Badr Unit,” which is “responsible for launching hundreds of rockets” at Israel during the war.

“Ibrahim was eliminated in an IAF strike on a Hezbollah military structure last week,” the IDF announced.

❗️INTELLIGENCE REVEALS: BROTHER OF TERRORIST BEHIND U.S. SYNAGOGUE ATTACK WAS A HEZBOLLAH TERRORIST

Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Muhammad Ghazali was responsible for managing weapons operations within a specialized branch of the Badr Unit. The unit is responsible for launching…

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) March 15, 2026

On Thursday, 41-year-old Ayman Muhammad Ghazali, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Lebanon, rammed his truck into Temple Israel synagogue in the Detroit area, where hundreds of children were attending preschool on the same compound.

Ghazali was armed with a rifle, the Associated Press reported. According to The New York Times, Ghazali first exchanged gunfire with the security guards before turning his weapon on himself when his vehicle – loaded with fireworks – became lodged in a hallway.

“He breached the building, drove down the hall, and he was engaged by security,” Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said.

Reports of a serious incident ongoing at Temple Israel, a Reform Jewish synagogue and school in West Bloomfield, Michigan, with an individual said to have driven a vehicle into the building before opening fire. Authorities are on-scene and have told nearby residents to… pic.twitter.com/AWY0PZct6N

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) March 12, 2026

Temple Israel said it is the largest Reform congregation in the United States with more than 3,000 families as members.

The NYT cited a Lebanese official and a Muslim leader in Michigan who said the Israeli airstrike killed another brother named Qassem, as well as Hezbollah operative Ibrahim and his two children. NBC News reported that Qassem was also a Hezbollah member.

Ghazali attended a memorial for his brothers, niece, and nephew at a mosque in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, on March 8, the NYT cited the local imam, Hassan Qazwini of the Islamic Institute of America, as saying.

Qazwini said some 400 people gathered at the memorial, many from the Lebanese village of Machghara, the hometown of the Ghazali family and part of the Badr Unit’s geographical area of responsibility in the north of southern Lebanon.

The town lies some 26 km (16 miles) north of the Israeli border.

According to the Israeli security think tank, Alma Research Center, in the aftermath of Israel’s intense focus on destroying Hezbollah’s infrastructure south of the Litani River, its “geographic center of gravity on the southern front has shifted north of the Litani – to the Badr Unit sector.”

The IDF is conducting ground operations south of the Litani River to push back Hezbollah forces and establish a buffer zone, preventing the group from firing into Israeli towns that sit lower than the neighboring Lebanese territory.