http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/24/world ... ?ref=worldJERUSALEM — Israel faced new political and economic pressures on Wednesday to negotiate a halt to the 16-day-old Gaza war, with its rising toll of death and destruction, as cease-fire talks ground forward and the Israeli tourism industry was upended as major foreign airlines extended their suspension of flights over fears of Palestinian rocket fire.
Israeli officials have talked increasingly in recent days about what they call the need for a demilitarization of Gaza, particularly the destruction of its tunnel network, perhaps under international auspices, as part of any agreement to halt the hostilities. “We cannot go to a cease-fire without resolving the tunnels,” Yitzhak Aharonvich, the public security minister, said on Army Radio. “We can have a cease-fire while dealing with the tunnels, but we cannot accept a situation where the tunnels are used by the terrorists as an entrance into Israel.”