JERUSALEM (AP) — The man who attacked a Michigan synagogue was the brother of a Hezbollah commander killed earlier this month in an Israeli airstrike, Israel’s military claimed Sunday.
Ibrahim Ghazali was killed in the March 5 strike in Lebanon along with three other relatives of the attacker in Michigan — a week before authorities allege Ayman Mohamad Ghazali drove his car into a major synagogue outside Detroit and killed himself after security fired at him.
The FBI's Detroit office, which is investigating the synagogue attack, declined to comment on the claims by Israel's military about Ibrahim Ghazali.
“Out of respect for the ongoing investigation, we will continue to refrain from commenting on its substance,” FBI spokesman Jordan Hall said in an email Sunday.
The Israeli military alleges Ibrahim Ghazali was a Hezbollah commander who managed weapons for a unit that fired rockets at Israel.
A Lebanese official, who requested anonymity because he could not publicly discuss details of the airstrike, has confirmed Ibrahim Ghazali’s death. The official told The Associated Press that Ghazali’s children, Ali and Fatima, and brother, Kassim, were also killed in the strike that struck their home just after sunset.
In a statement sent to the AP in Beirut, Hezbollah said that the brothers, Ibrahim and Kassim, were a referee in a local soccer league and a scout member, and they were targeted at home along with their children, but didn't explicitly deny that Ibrahim was in the group.
Authorities have said that Ayman Ghazali, 41, carried out the synagogue attack after learning that four of his family members were killed in the Israeli strike.
Israel has stepped up attacks on the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon as the war with Iran has spread violence across the Middle East.
On Thursday, Ayman Ghazali waited in his car outside Temple Israel, near Detroit, for about two hours with a rifle, commercial grade fireworks and jugs of liquid believed to be gasoline, before crashing into the building full of dozens of children, according to authorities.
He started firing his gun through the windshield, exchanging fire with an armed security guard. Ghazali fatally shot himself after he got stuck in his vehicle and the engine caught fire, said Jennifer Runyan, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office. No staffers or children inside the synagogue were hurt, likely due to beefed up security in recent months.
The FBI, which is leading the investigation, described the attack on one of the nation’s largest Reform synagogues as an act of violence targeting the Jewish community. But the agency said it didn’t have enough evidence yet to call it an act of terror.
Ghazali came to the U.S. in 2011 on an immediate relative visa as the spouse of a U.S. citizen and was granted U.S. citizenship in 2016, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
He lived in a single-story brick home in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn Heights about 40 miles (60 kilometers) south of the synagogue.
The attack on the Michigan synagogue took place on the same day as a former Army National Guard member who served years in prison for attempting to aid the Islamic State group opened fire on a classroom at Old Dominion University in Virginia, killing one person and wounding two others.
Mroue reported from Beirut.
Law enforcement escort families away from the Temple Israel synagogue Thursday, March 12, 2026, in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
A police vehicle sits outside the Temple Israel synagogue Friday, March 13, 2026, in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Police tape hangs outside the Temple Israel synagogue Friday, March 13, 2026, in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
HOUSTON (AP) — Their dramatic grand finale fast approaching, Artemis II’s astronauts aimed for a splashdown in the Pacific on Friday to close out humanity’s first voyage to the moon in more than a half-century.
The tension in Mission Control mounted as the miles melted away between the four returning astronauts and Earth.
All eyes were on the capsule’s life-protecting heat shield that has to withstand thousands of degrees during reentry. On the spacecraft's only other test flight — in 2022, with no one on board — the shield’s charred exterior came back looking as pockmarked as the moon.
Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen were on track to hit the atmosphere traveling Mach 33 — or 33 times the speed of sound — a blistering blur not seen since NASA’s Apollo moonshots of the 1960s and 1970s.
They didn’t plan on taking manual control except in an emergency. Their Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity, is completely self-flying.
Like so many others, lead flight director Jeff Radigan anticipated feeling some of that “irrational fear that is human nature,” especially during the six minutes of communication blackout preceding the opening of the parachutes. The recovery ship USS John P. Murtha awaited the crew's arrival off the coast of San Diego, along with a squadron of military planes and helicopters.
The last time NASA and the Defense Department teamed up for a lunar crew's reentry was Apollo 17 in 1972. Artemis II was projected to come screaming back at 36,170 feet (11,025 meters) per second — or 24,661 mph (39,668 kph) — just shy of the record before slowing to a 19 mph (30 kph) splashdown.
Launched from Florida on April 1, the astronauts racked up one win after another as they deftly navigated NASA’s long-awaited lunar comeback, the first major step in establishing a sustainable moon base.
Artemis II didn't land on the moon or even orbit it. But it broke Apollo 13's distance record and marked the farthest that humans have ever journeyed from Earth when the crew reached 252,756 miles (406,771 kilometers). Then in the mission's most heart-tugging scene, the teary astronauts asked permission to name a pair of craters after their moonship and Wiseman's late wife, Carroll.
During Monday's record-breaking flyby, they documented scenes of the moon's far side never seen before by the human eye along with a total solar eclipse. The eclipse, in particular, “just blew all of us away,” Glover said.
Their sense of wonder and love awed everyone, as did their breathtaking pictures of the moon and Earth. The Artemis II crew channeled Apollo 8's first lunar explorers with Earthset, showing our Blue Marble setting behind the gray moon. It was reminiscent of Apollo 8’s famous Earthrise shot from 1968.
“It just makes you want to continue to go back,” Radigan said on the eve of splashdown. “It's the first of many trips and we just need to continue on because there’s so much” more to learn about the moon.
Their moonshot drew global attention as well as star power, earning props from President Donald Trump; Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney; Britain's King Charles III; Ryan Gosling, star of the latest space flick “Project Hail Mary”; Scarlett Johansson of the Marvel Cinematic Universe; and even Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner of TV’s original “Star Trek.”
Despite its rich scientific yield, the nearly 10-day flight was not without technical issues. Both the capsule’s drinking water and propellant systems were hit with valve problems. In perhaps the most high-profile predicament, the toilet kept malfunctioning, but the astronauts shrugged it all off.
“We can’t explore deeper unless we are doing a few things that are inconvenient,” Koch said, “unless we’re making a few sacrifices, unless we’re taking a few risks, and those things are all worth it.”
Added Hansen: “You do a lot of testing on the ground, but your final test is when you get this hardware to space and it’s a doozy.”
Under the revamped Artemis program, next year’s Artemis III will see astronauts practice docking their capsule with a lunar lander or two in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV will attempt to land a crew of two near the moon’s south pole in 2028.
The Artemis II astronauts' allegiance was to those future crews, Wiseman said.
“But we really hoped in our soul is that we could for just for a moment have the world pause and remember that this is a beautiful planet and a very special place in our universe, and we should all cherish what we have been gifted,” he said.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
In this image from video provided by NASA, the Artemis II Orion capsule, right, separates from the service module above the Earth in preparation for splash down in the Pacific Ocean. (NASA via AP)
In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew, counterclockwise from top left, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, Commander Reid Wiseman, and Pilot Victor Glover pose with eclipse viewers during a lunar flyby, Monday, April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP)
In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew photographed the Moons curved limb during their journey around the far side of the Moon on April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP)
In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew photographed a bright portion of the Moon on April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP)
In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew captured this view as the Earth sets behind the Moon during a lunar flyby, Monday, April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP)
