The man suspected of ramming his car into a synagogue near Detroit, Michigan, on Thursday while armed with a rifle had family members who died in an Israeli strike in Lebanon last week, officials said. 

The suspect, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, was fatally shot by security officers after driving a vehicle through Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township in what is being investigated as a "targeted act of violence against the Jewish community," according to the special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigations’ (FBI) Detroit field office, Jennifer Runyan, who spoke at a news conference on Thursday.

A security guard was struck by the vehicles, officials said that day. The guard was taken to the hospital, but was expected to recover. None of the 140 students or staff members in the synagogue were injured during the attack.

A motive for the attack has not been identified. Runyan said officials believe the suspect acted alone. 

“Everyone deserves to worship in peace, and we must unequivocally condemn any attack on a house of worship or the people within it,” Dearborn Heights Mayor Mo Baydoun wrote in a Facebook post Thursday evening. “This tragedy comes at a time when communities everywhere are confronting rising hate and senseless violence.”

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer denounced the attack the following day. 

“Yesterday’s attack was antisemitism. It was hate, plain and simple,” she said at a news conference on Friday. “We will fight this ancient and rampant evil, we will stand together as we do it and we will call it out.”

Ghazali was found dead in his car following the attack, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said at a news conference on Thursday. Bouchard said that “everything that was supposed to happen happened. Security did their job, and then the responders did theirs.”

“Obviously, what happens around the world sometimes affects us, so we have to think about it and be prepared for it,” Bouchard said.

Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin said at a briefing on Friday that she grew up going to Temple Israel and praised the swift response to the attack. 

"If they had not all done their jobs almost perfectly, we would be talking about an immense tragedy here today, with children gone," Slotkin said.

Here’s what we know about Thursday’s attack, and Ghazali. 

What happened?

A 911 call was placed at 12:19 p.m. reporting an "an active shooter situation at Temple Israel where the individual drove into the building,” according to West Bloomfield Township Police Chief Dale Young.

"Temple security officers engaged the individual and neutralized the threat," Young said during a Thursday afternoon news conference.

Ghazali drove down a hallway of the synagogue before being shot by security guards,  according to authorities. The car caught fire after being rammed into the building.

One security guard was knocked unconscious by the vehicle during the attack but did not suffer life-threatening injuries, according to Bouchard. The temple’s preschool was in session when the attack occurred. Cassi Cohen, director of strategic development at Temple Israel, told The Associated Press that children as old as four were in a classroom near where the car crashed and that more than 30 staff members were in the synagogue at the time. 

Cohen told the wire service that after hearing a loud crash in the hallway where the vehicle was driving, she locked herself and a few staff members in her office. “When I heard the crash, I knew it was bad,” said Cohen.

Smoke billowed from the synagogue after the suspect’s car caught fire. Parents rushed to retrieve their children once the building was cleared, while others met their kids at a nearby Jewish Community Center.

The synagogue confirmed in a Facebook post Thursday afternoon that “everyone is safe. All 140 students in our Susan and Harold Loss Early Childhood Center, our amazing staff, our courageous teachers, and our heroic security personnel are all accounted for and safe.”

In addition to the security guards that engaged with the suspect, more responding officers entered the synagogue wearing gas masks, and 30 officers received treatment for smoke inhalation, according to Bouchard. 

State and federal officials have said that although they believe Ghazali is the perpetrator they are awaiting forensics to confirm the identity of the driver, whose body was burned.

Following the attack, the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reported to the scene to aid in the investigation. 

Police issued a shelter-in-place order for buildings within a mile of the synagogue. 

What we know about the suspect

Baydoun announced late Thursday that the suspect was a resident of Dearborn Heights. 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that Ghazali came from Lebanon to the U.S. through Detroit on May 10, 2011, as the spouse of a U.S. citizen using an IR1 immigrant visa after "alien relative and fiancé petitions filed in December 2009 were approved in April 2010.” 

After applying for naturalization in October 2015, he was granted citizenship in February 2016, according to DHS.

Originally from Mashghara, a town in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley, Ghazali lost two of his brothers, a niece, and a nephew during Israeli airstrikes on the town last week, a Lebanese official told NBC News. His late brothers were understood to be members of Hezbollah, a militant group backed by Iran, the official said, though it is not known whether they were targeted in the strike.

Ghazali's neighbor of roughly 10 years told NBC that she was "very, very shocked" upon hearing he was allegedly responsible for the attack. 

“What drove this person into action has to be determined by the investigation,” Bouchard said.