PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan synagogue on Thursday posted photos on social media of major fire damage that occurred when an attacker drove a pickup truck into the building last week before killing himself.
One image shows tables of fruits and snacks left uneaten when the midday strike occurred near an early childhood education room at Temple Israel in suburban Detroit. Photos reveal loose wires in the hallway, an exposed ceiling and blackened walls, including an array of celebratory photos ruined by fire. Sprinklers ran for hours.
The synagogue decided to share photos after an earlier release of law enforcement images was “incredibly triggering” to members of Temple Israel, Rabbi Josh Bennett told The Associated Press.
“This is our sacred space, and we will be the ones to tell its story,” Temple Israel said on Facebook.
Ayman Ghazali, 41, rammed his pickup through a synagogue door on March 12, striking a security guard, after he sat in the parking lot for two hours. Security staff exchanged gunfire with him before he killed himself, the FBI said, noting that the truck had commercial-grade fireworks and several jugs of gasoline.
No one else among the 150 children and staff was injured, Bennett said.
At a news conference organized by law enforcement and area faith leaders, he said the congregation of 3,500 families will eventually return to its house of worship in West Bloomfield Township.
“We will not be defined by the violence done to us. Rather, we will be defined by the values we carry forward,” Bennett said Thursday. “We are grateful for this community … for every voice that has spoken out. We ask that those voices do not fall silent.”
Imam Steve Mustapha Elturk of the Islamic Organization of North America listened nearby and agreed.
“Silence in the face of antisemitism or Islamophobia is complicity. We must speak out whenever and wherever we see hate, whether it’s in a synagogue or a mosque,” Elturk told reporters.
The FBI said it hasn’t determined a motive, though Ghazali’s ex-wife called police in Dearborn Heights around the time of the attack to warn that he seemed distraught and suicidal. Ghazali, who was a naturalized U.S. citizen, had lost family members during an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon on March 5.
“You don’t go into somebody’s house, or in this case a house of worship, and try to kill kids from zero to 5 because something happened in another part of the world,” Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said.
“You can’t justify that.”
Israel’s military said the man’s brother, Ibrahim Ghazali, who was killed in the recent airstrike, was a Hezbollah commander in Lebanon. National intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard told a Senate committee Wednesday that Ayman Ghazali had family ties “to a Hezbollah leader.”
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White reported from Detroit.
