The way that hes conducted the war In Gaza, have been in favour of some kind of escalation with hezbollah. And what on earth has happened to one of chinas most senior economists after he criticised Xi Jinping . We think he disappeared some time earlier this year. That gives you an indication ofjust how cautious peoplel have to be in order to not run foul of the leadership in china. Sirens blare iran launched two big waves of missiles at israel on tuesday. But in case you might think World War iii was breaking out, it was all carefully choreographed. Distant explosions iran signalled what it was going to do, The Americans knew about it beforehand and israel was expecting it. Thats the way these things are done. The basic facts are unchanged. Israel remains dominant in the immediate region, and irans hope of turning its two associate groups hamas, In Gaza, and hezbollah, in lebanon into checks on Israel Hasnt succeeded. And a wider war between Israel And Iran doesnt seem altogether likely because neither country wants it especially not iran, whose rulers know how fragile their control over their own population is. I sought the views of frank gardner, the bbc� s security correspondent. We spoke just before Irans Attack on israel. Israel started this with the pager Exploding Pagers and then the air campaign. But in the end, it was always inevitable that, to achieve their aims, they were going to have to go in on the ground, which theyve done. And when they talk about a limited, targeted operation, doesnt that sound to you slightly familiar, like a special Military Operation . Itll be very easy for them to go into lebanon. Itll be much harder for them to come out with a quantifiable, achievable aim. And israels aim is to clear out hezbollahs weapons and their Rocket Launchers so that their own residents can return to the north of israel to work on their farms, and so on. Hezbollah have said, bring it on. Were ready to fight you. So, we dont yet know how effective that Fight Back is going to be. But i think it could be quite a long and bloody fight for Ground Troops in southern lebanon. It certainly was when israel occupied lebanon from 1982 to 2000, and again in the short war that they fought in 2006. In 3a days, they fought each other to a standstill. Nobody won that war. So, its not enoughjust to kill all the leading military figures. Theyve got to decimate the structure further down than that, you mean . Hezbollah, like any non state military organisation, will know that there is a target on the back of their leaders and the next tier down, and probably the tier after that. This was probably faster and more brutal than they expected, but nevertheless, they have a Succession Plan in place. It takes time for them to acquire the same kind of level of experience and following, but they are all replaceable. So, the idea that you can completely eliminate this problem without a lasting, peaceful solution is. Is unrealistic. Of course, there are bigger issues here theres gaza, and hezbollah have linked their campaign to that of gaza. Theyve said, we will stop Firing Rockets if there is a ceasefire In Gaza. Theres only going to be a ceasefire In Gaza if both sides can agree and the Sticking Point there is the withdrawal of israeli troops. Hamas wants israeli troops out of gaza and a guarantee theyre not going to come back. Benjamin Netanyahus Government is saying, we wont do that unless we you know, were not going to sign up to that, because what if we find youre Smuggling Weapons in again . So, theres an impasse there, a blockage which The Americans, the qataris, the egyptians have all tried really hard to get over, but they cant quite bridge it. And what about hezbollahs sponsors, iran . There will be those who will be saying in iran, we cantjust stand by and watch our entire axis of resistance crumble. The israelis are taking us apart. Hezbollah was our main flag torchbearers for the islamic revolution in the arab world. We cant just sit back and let them be weve got to do something. Theyve called on us to help, we need to help them. That will be the hardliners saying that. There will be others saying, maybe were better off biding our time and doing whatever we want to do further down the line. Those will be the more cautious voices. Lets not forget that, 12 days after israel took out, or demolished, the iranian consulate in damascus, hitting the Brigadier General who was in charge of coordinating the Arms Supplies from iran through syria to hezbollah, iran retaliated in a big way. It launched that barrage of roughly 300 missiles and drones directly at Israel For The First Time notjust using its proxies, but attacking israel directly. Nearly all were intercepted. Israel was then the hawks in israel said, we need to hit iran even harder now. With a lot of diplomatic pressure from the west, there was a Restraining Hand on israel, and they did a kind of token hit on an iranian nuclear site, or close to a nuclear site. You must have been watching with real interest to see how israel had instilled its deepest agents in all sorts of ways, not only in iran, but also, of course, in hezbollah. Theyve really gone through those organisations with tremendous ability, havent they . They have, they absolutely have. It has had a chilling effect, i think, on hezbollah, because, you know, how do they communicate now . They dont trust Mobile Phones because they know that they can be hacked and tracked by israeli cyber specialists. Do they go back to Walkie Talkies . Well, those blew up, as well. So, its not easy for them to communicate. So, yeah and when it comes to iran, youre absolutely right. Israel clearly has the mossad, israels overseas spy network, has a network of people who are working for them, whether theyre iranians or others. But they clearly have a network, because theyve been able to assassinate a number of leading nuclear scientists. So, i think its likely that the iranians are quite possibly now going to step up their nuclear programme to reach a point at which they could acquire Breakout Capability to build a bomb, should they choose, because they will see that as the best guarantee against being attacked. Speaking in Hebrew Benjamin Netanyahu switch of focus from gaza to lebanon appears to have been highly successful. 0n gaza, he has a large number of critics within israel itself. But where lebanons concerned, most israelis seem to support him certainly for the time being. I asked shaina oppenheimer, bbc monitorings middle East Specialist based injerusalem, for her view of what was going on. Fighting in the north gives a clean slate for netanyahu. There is no pressure, there is no hostages there. Its quite, erm, favourable. And the israeli public is actually quite, kind of, rallying around this. The idea of bringing back the israeli residents who have been displaced from their homes for the past year is not a new idea, but this kind of ability to perhaps get some kind of Victory Image that Netanyahu Wasnt able to get out of gaza, not being able to defeat hamas after a year of fighting, is perhaps a new opportunity for him. But the whole of his strategy so far in lebanon has been extraordinarily successful, hasnt it, from Israels Point of view . After what was an incredible historic failure for the Israeli Army and its intelligence after the October 7th attack, this is an opportunity to reshow israels abilities their intelligence abilities and their air forces abilities in being able to carry out attacks like the pager attack, the Walkie Talkies attack, and also these Air Strikes, killing quite senior hezbollah leaders, including hassan nasrallah. What do you think about the whole way that netanyahu has approached all this, though . I mean, is itjust going from one tactical question to another . Tactical victory, you could say . Or does he have some long Term Vision in mind . It is really unclear. I mean, the possibility of israel being able to push hezbollah back from the northern border with israel would be an incredible victory for netanyahu. But whats really interesting is that, when this war broke out and when the possibility of a larger escalation with hezbollah was first conceived, there was a lot of discourse in the public and the media about how disastrous the two previous wars in lebanon were. The world seems to have taken its attention off gaza and placed it on lebanon. But whats going on In Gaza itself . Theres continued Air StrikesIn Gaza. Palestinian civilians are continuing to be killed In Gaza, and there is certainly worry there that the world has forgotten about whats happening there. Whats quite interesting is hezbollah said, from the very beginning, that it was carrying out these Cross Border exchanges with israel to force israel into a ceasefire with hamas, and that it would stop these attacks if a ceasefire was reached. There isnt a lot of rhetoric in israel about some kind of ceasefire with hamas as being the key to ending the Cross Borderfire, and now escalation in the north. And in the meantime, of course, the united states being completely sidelined does netanyahu really disregard the united states now, do you think . It seems that hes getting quite comfortable with the leeway that the biden administration is certainly being accused of giving him, while theyre putting out statements expressing concern for the civilian casualties In Gaza, and now in lebanon. And i think what is incredibly interesting is that theres a lot of public support for some kind of ceasefire In Gaza and to bring back the hostages, and it is a priority. But that rhetoric almost seems to have gone away. And people who are quite critical of netanyahu, the way that hes conducted the war In Gaza, have been in favour of some kind of escalation with hezbollah. Does it seem, though, as though further down the Line Therell be more difficulties, more problems . Well, if you contain itjust to what the israelis says are targeted Air Strikes on hezbollah leaders which we know also has an incredible toll and civilian Casualty Rate perhaps this could be seen as a victory. If you look at the long Term Goal and trajectory in which this is going, its really unclear how this would play out, just because israel went into lebanon in 2006 thinking it would be this quick defeat and it wasnt that. It was a very, very hard thing to do. Israel went into gaza with the same idea. It wasnt able to do that it still isnt able to do that. Even now, the Israeli Army is pulling out and going back in over and over again to different places In Gaza. This is certainly going to have repercussions for generations to come, and, in terms of support for groups that are seen as Resistance Groups amongst the public, its not necessarily taking this region to a more secure future. Two years ago, in a scene that was quite painful to watch, the elderly former boss of the chinese communist party, hujintao, was ushered out of the Closing Ceremony of the Party Congress live on chinese television. Why, and what hed done to offend the present leader, xijinping assuming that he wasntjust ill, which was the official explanation we dont know. Mr hu certainly hasnt been heard of since. The massed ranks of unelected delegates to the congress were given a fierce reminder that you do not fall out with President Xi without paying a heavy price. Thats a lesson which a top chinese economist, zhu hengpeng, failed to learn a few months ago. In an entirely private message on chinas social media platform wechat, he criticised President Xi. Not a good career move. Mr zhu has vanished without trace, and there are very few images of him left on the internet. I asked micky bristow, Asia Pacific Editorfor the bbc world service, for more details. We think he disappeared some time early this year. His last known movements were in april, when he took part in a conference, and since then nobody on the outside world has really seen him. And how do we know hes disappeared . Because his Name Hasnt appeared on, or its disappeared from, the organisations for which he worked for. So, he worked for the chinese academy of social sciences. Names disappeared from that organisation. He worked for an economic Think Tank at tsinghua university, one of chinas top universities. His names gone from there, as well. In many cases in china, you dont know somethings happened to somebody until theyjust dont appear in the places that you expect them to appear. But he did make the mistake of criticising Xi Jinping semi publicly, didnt he . What appears to have happened is, on an internal group, like a Messaging Group between academics, hes made some very impolitic comments about xijinping, notjust about his economic policies, but also about his mortality because, of course, theres constant speculation about the health of Xi Jinping. That appears to have got him in trouble. Talking about someone whos a very senior economic adviser, someone who will have had access to the top echelons of the leadership in china, somebody whose advice will have been taken. And, even if he can disappear, even if its difficult for him to speak honestly and openly within a small group of friends, that gives you an indication ofjust how cautious people have to be in order to not run foul of the leadership in china. And what about the health of the chinese economy, then . Clearly, some part of the criticism was about the way that xi is running the economy. Yeah, the criticism of xi, generally and broadly, is that hes inflexible. Hes not really suited to the 21st century, still harking back to a day of mao zedong, when State Run Enterprises were given the most resources, and there were no private enterprises then. But hes gone back to that, to a certain extent, where loans, for example, from State Run banks, will go to State Run industries rather than newer industries, innovative industries and companies which might generate more money for the chinese economy in the years to come. Over the last few years, the economy has performed well, but not as well as it was doing at the beginning of the century. At the time Xi Jinping came in, there was a lot of hope that he was going to reform. If anything, hes gone backwards. Hes gone back to an age which chinese people thought theyd seen the back of forever. And so, not only has he turned out not to be reformist, hes gone backwards and perhaps backwards in terms of political liberalisation. Theres never been a lot of that in china. But in the early part of this century, there was small Wiggle Room for people to criticise, for people to develop and develop businesses and say things around the edges. All thats gone. Is It Part of a pattern . I mean leading figures in economic life in particular, just, you know, being knocked down, disappearing, jailed, whatever . Well, it has happened before most famously with jack ma, who at one point was chinas richest man. Tycoon, brought himself up, Self Made Man who perhaps thought because of his wealth, because of his influence, because of the money he generated for the chinese economy, he could say what he wanted to. And so, a few years ago, he criticised chinas financial reform. Very quickly, he was brought down back to earth. I think his Finance Company he was about to list on the Hong Kong Stock exchange that was suddenly cancelled. No explanation as to why that would happen. He disappeared for a time. Hes reappeared, but. Hes a broken man, though, isnt he . Hes a broken man. He spends a lot of time, i believe, now, outside of china, injapan. But he certainly isnt vocal in any way, Shape Or Form like he was before. If he can be silenced very, very easily, then whos going to speak out . Whos going to be able to say things to xijinping . Nobody would dar