Israel's acceptance of a truce in Gaza shows the Jewish state is "increasingly weakening," a senior aide to Iran's supreme leader said on Thursday, reaffirming support for the anti-Israel resistance.

"Accepting defeat (only) after eight days shows the Zionist regime is increasingly weakening," Saeed Jalili, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and a close aide to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a statement published by state broadcaster IRIB.

An Israeli reserves officer died on Thursday of wounds sustained in a rocket attack that occurred hours before a truce to end eight days of violence in and around Gaza was agreed between Israel and Hamas.

A statement from the Israeli army named the casualty as "Lieutenant Boris Yarmulnik, 28 years old from Netanya," who "died of his wounds... after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit the Eshkol Regional Council (Wednesday) afternoon."

Yasser Arafat's widow said on Thursday that next week's exhumation of the late Palestinian leader was "very painful" but also necessary because of suspicions Israel poisoned him.

"It is very painful. It is a shock, and it is not easy for myself or my daughter," Suha Arafat told AFP in the West Bank capital of Ramallah from where Arafat governed until his death in a French hospital in November 2004.

Israelis and Palestinians must address the root causes of tensions in the Middle East now that a ceasefire halting eight days of conflict around Gaza is in place, peace envoy Tony Blair said Thursday.

"The key thing was always to get the ceasefire in place," Britain's former prime minister told reporters.

Switzerland has decided to support a Palestinian bid for observer status at the United Nations when it is presented next week, Swiss public broadcaster RTS reported Thursday.

Bern reached its decision after president Mahmoud Abbas' visit to Switzerland last week, RTS reported, quoting unnamed sources.

Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Morsi emerged as a winner after brokering a Gaza truce hailed by world powers, but striking a balance between Israel and the Palestinians remains a tough task.

The United Nations and United States were among those that welcomed Wednesday's ceasefire that ended eight days of Israel-Hamas violence that killed nearly 170 people, amid hopes it will lead to a "sustainable" solution.

The Hamas prime minister of the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniya, on Thursday called on all Palestinian factions to respect a truce deal reached with Israel a day earlier.

"I salute the resistance factions who have respected the agreement since it entered into force and I ask everyone to respect it and act accordingly," Haniya said in a Gaza City speech.

A Palestinian woman in her late 30s was arrested on Thursday after trying to stab an Israeli border guard at the entrance of an east Jerusalem police station, police said.

It was not immediately clear what prompted the woman to attack the border guard, who suffered only scratches, a statement said, indicating that an investigation was under way.

Israel and the United States have agreed to work together to prevent the smuggling of weapons from Iran to militant groups in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday.

"Israel cannot sit idly by as its enemies strengthen themselves with weapons of terror so I agreed with President (Barack) Obama that we will work together -- Israel and the United States -- against the smuggling of weapons to terror organizations, most of which comes from Iran," he said in a televised address.

Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Wednesday that the Palestinian resistance's experience in the most recent conflict with Israel should be studied and evaluated for its “greatness”.

"The U.S., the West, Arabs and Muslims, Lebanese, Palestinians and Gaza should all learn lessons from this experience,” said Nasrallah in a speech he gave on the seventh day of Ashoura, adding that the fighters' performance has reinforced the strength and the power that will lead to “this nation's victory”.