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The Israeli military said it killed the brother of Ayman Mohamad Ghazali in an airstrike in Lebanon a week before the assault on the synagogue.
March 15, 2026, 8:55 a.m. ET
The Israeli military said on Sunday that the brother of the man who drove a truck into a synagogue in Michigan last Thursday was a Hezbollah commander who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon earlier this month.
The synagogue attacker, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, was a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Lebanon. Four of his relatives were killed in an Israeli airstrike on March 5: his brother, Ibrahim, and his two children, as well as another brother, Qassem, according to a Lebanese official and a Muslim leader in Michigan.
Israel said it had confirmed the death of Ibrahim Mohamad Ghazali after an intelligence analysis but provided no details about how it had verified the information.
A Hezbollah official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not confirm nor deny whether the brother was a fighter with the group, and told The New York Times the Michigan attack was revenge for his family.
The Israeli military described the target of the March 5 strike as a Hezbollah “military structure,” where it said weapons were stored and operatives of the militant group were present.
The military said Ibrahim had led a Hezbollah weapons team for the Badr unit, a division of the group’s southern command.
