2024: Monday, August 26

THE WAR NEWSLETTER — AUGUST 26 2024

Good morning - it’s a new week. Today’s focus is on two of the most active wars, Israel and Ukraine.

Welcome to your daily international conflict update.

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1. 🇮🇱 Hezbollah launches massive attack against Israel

2. 🇺🇦 Ukraine holds Kursk Oblast

1 - ISRAEL

Yesterday morning, terrorist group Hezbollah laid preparations for an attack against Israel. Hezbollah is based in Lebanon, to Israel’s north, and has one of the strongest militaries of any terrorist group.

Israel detected the planned attack 30 minutes ahead of time and launched more than 100 IAF fighter jets to strike targets in Lebanon, where more than 50% of the weapons that Hezbollah planned to use in the attack were destroyed on the ground before they could be launched, including thousands of rockets.

Hezbollah managed to fire between 200 and 300 projectiles into Israel, including rockets and one-way suicide drones. The attack was far smaller than they had planned to to the earlier IDF raids, and Israel’s Iron Dome rocket interceptors were able to neutralize most of the threatening rockets. 

Hezbollah fired a wave of rockets first, to distract Israeli defense systems, then a second wave of rockets and drones intended to penetrate deeper into Israel. They were not successful, as the attacks were intercepted.

Read more on AP or Times Of Israel

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2 - SUDAN

Ukrainian forces are still meeting only weak opposition to their incursion into Kursk Oblast, on Russian soil, but neither side made any significant gains over the weekend.  Russian defenses remain weak because most of the troops are still deployed on the front lines in Ukrainian territory, and moving them back into Russia would take days and leave them vulnerable to attack.

Ukraine has destroyed or incapacitated all bridges on the Seym River, leaving a reported 3000 troops against the river, surrounded on three sides by Ukrainian forces.  Ukraine and Russia also conducted their first POW exchange since the incursion, each trading 115 soldiers.

There are still restrictions on how U.S. weaponry can be used, but if those restrictions were to be lifted, it would create a significant long-range threat by Ukraine that would likely require a major reconfiguration of Russian defenses to prevent against deep strikes.

Read more on ISW here or here

THE REST OF THE WORLD…

• Houthi terrorists destroy oil tanker MV SOUNION in the Red Sea [Daily Wire]

• Pavel Durov, founder of messaging platform Telegram, is arrested in France.  Russian milibloggers have expressed concern that his arrest may affect their ability to report freely on the war [New York Times]

• Islamic terrorist blows up cars near French synagogue [Daily Wire]

P.S. If you have a source, tip, or piece of information we missed, please reply to this email and tell us about it. Thank you!