Hate and revenge fueled Thursday’s attack on a Michigan synagogue.
The FBI said the attack was a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community,” according to the BBC.
“We know there’s evil in the world,” Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard remarked, calling the attack in which the synagogue was damaged a “hateful, terrible thing.”
The Department of Homeland Security said the man who damaged Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, is a U.S. citizen who was born in Lebanon.
CBS News reported that about 10 days before Ghazali attacked the synagogue, an Israeli airstrike in his family’s Lebanese village killed two of his brothers and two of their children, as well as injuring one of his sisters-in-law.
After the attack, Ghazali stopped working and withdrew from contact with others.
Shortly before the attack, Ghazali called his divorced wife and told her to take care of their children.
Ghazali entered the U.S. legally in 2011 as the spouse of a U.S. citizen and became a citizen himself in 2016.
The Thursday afternoon attack began when a driver drove his truck through the synagogue’s doors and down a hallway, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said, according to The New York Times.
Bouchard said the attacker was “traveling with purpose” down the hallway.
Security guards “neutralized” the attacker, Chief Dale Young of the West Bloomfield Township Police Department said.
One security guard was struck by the vehicle. Multiple first responders suffered smoke inhalation from the fire that was started by the assault.
CBS News reported that a mortar was in the vehicle, which started the explosion. Ghazali was armed with a rifle, police said.
Rabbi Josh Bennett of Temple Israel said security members had been trained in case of an attack.
“As part of the Jewish community, we are ready for these kinds of threats. We have a full security team who is tasked with keeping us safe but also training us to know what to do in the event of one of these events,” he said.
“We knew something like this might happen. Of course we hope and pray that it never does come to pass, but when it does, they prepared us with active-shooter trainings, with a sense of security of knowing what we are supposed to do in the moment,” he continued.
Bennett added that “everybody in our building did exactly what they were supposed to do,” and as a result “we are sitting here today with what could have been a far worse tragedy.”
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
