DETROIT — When a Lebanese-born American, who was reportedly mourning relatives killed by an Israeli airstrike, plowed his truck into a Michigan synagogue Thursday and began driving “with purpose” up a hallway toward classrooms with dozens of children, the temple’s private security team was ready.
They engaged the driver, killing him, authorities said, while negotiating thick smoke that billowed from the vehicle and eventually sent three dozen first responders to the hospital. A security guard broke a leg defending the building, and more than 100 children and staff members made it out safely, authorities said. It was nothing short of a miracle, leaders said.
“Everything worked as it was supposed to work, but there is also a little bit of luck or God shining on us and watching over us,” said Rabbi Josh Bennett, one of several clergy members at Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield, the largest synagogue in the Detroit metro area, with more than 3,000 families. “I’m so appreciative that we are talking about gathering for worship tonight, not gathering for funerals today.”
Around the country, churches and other religious institutions, schools and public buildings raised their security protocols this week after a string of small-scale and violent attacks across the United States, all of which appeared to have associations with the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.
On Thursday, in addition to the Michigan synagogue attack, ROTC students at Old Dominion University subdued and killed a shooter— a man previously convicted of helping the Islamic State — who had stormed into a classroom on campus, killing one person and injuring two more. On Sunday, a man wearing a hoodie that read “Property of Allah” and a T-shirt with the Iranian flag shot and killed two people in a bar near the University of Texas in Austin.
When asked Friday about whether the attack in Michigan was linked to the U.S.-Iran conflict, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) deflected the question, calling the incident “hate, plain and simple.” The FBI has said that the incident was a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community.”
The Department of Homeland Security identified the attacker as Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, and said he came to the United States from Lebanon in 2011 as the spouse of a U.S. citizen and was granted citizenship in 2016. Efforts to reach Ghazali’s family were not successful.
Court records in Detroit show that his wife, Fatima Rizk, filed for divorce Aug. 22, 2024. The divorce was finalized March 24, 2025.
Though officials have not confirmed a motive, members of Ghazali’s family were recently killed by Israeli airstrikes, Dearborn Heights Mayor Mo Baydoun said in a Facebook post late Thursday. Among the four family members who died were Ghazali’s two brothers and a niece and nephew, the Associated Press reported, citing an anonymous local official in the town of Mashgharah in Lebanon.
They were killed in an airstrike after sunset while they were having a meal to break a Ramadan fast, the AP reported. The two brothers who were killed were Kassim Ghazali, a soccer coach and personal trainer, and Ibrahim Ghazali, a school bus driver in the village, the news service said.
Baydoun said in a Facebook post late Thursday that Ayman Mohamad Ghazali was a resident of Dearborn Heights.
“The tensions we see across the world too often find their way into our own neighborhoods, reminding us how deeply connected our shared safety is,” the mayor wrote.
Tensions in the Middle East, including the two-week-old U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack against Israel, have created heightened threat environments domestically, said Matthew Levitt, director of the Washington Institute’s counterterrorism and intelligence program. Houses of worship are common targets, he added, as would-be perpetrators see the period during and after conflicts as an opportune time to strike, even if they are not ideologically aligned with the groups involved.
Houses of worship have increased security in recent years after a rise in attacks on religious communities, particularly after the attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Religious institutions have installed bulletproof film on windows, reinforced doors, set up new surveillance systems and done active-shooter drills.
Law enforcement agencies have also increased communications with one another, especially in jurisdictions with prominent houses of worship. Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said Thursday that he had texted Temple Israel’s head of security just two days before the attack.
Still, attacks can be difficult to anticipate when they are uncoordinated or carried out by a sole offender. The perpetrators are harder to track because they may not have communicated with larger terrorist groups, even if they are inspired by them, and would not show up on law enforcement’s radar, Levitt said.
Bruce Stoller, 71, a Temple Israel member for 40 years, said the security team had conducted many emergency drills before Thursday’s attack.
“They’ve had impressive rehearsals. They did not take security lightly,” he said. “At the high holidays we had drones flying over the building, we had people on the roof. It’s sad, they had a police state.”
Bennett, the rabbi, said that Thursday is usually a lighter day for school attendance but that there were still 103 students in the building. He said the children, who had practiced evacuating for fire drills, moved out in an orderly fashion.
“The security team and teachers did everything they were supposed to do,” he said.
Lengel reported from Detroit. Razzan Nakhlawi contributed to this report.
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