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.

U.S. President Barack Obama thanked his Egyptian counterpart Mohamed Morsi on Wednesday for his role is negotiating a planned truce between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza.

"The president thanked President Morsi for his efforts to achieve a sustainable ceasefire and for his personal leadership in negotiating a ceasefire proposal," the White House said in a statement.

President Barack Obama landed back on U.S. soil early Wednesday after his landmark visit to Myanmar and a three-day tour of Southeast Asia in which he attended a regional summit.

The president arrived at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, near the U.S. capital, at 12:30 am (5:30 GMT), said a reporter on Air Force One, and then made the short flight back to the White House on his Marine One helicopter.

A "talking points" memo distributed to government officials about the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya was altered by the intelligence community and not the White House, CNN reported.

Armed militants stormed the U.S. mission in Benghazi on September 11 in a coordinated assault at two different locations over several hours that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday defied Chinese protests and raised concerns at a summit about territorial disputes that have sent diplomatic and trade shockwaves across the region.

Obama weighed into the debate over China's sweeping claims to the South China Sea, which have rattled less powerful Southeast Asian countries, as well as a separate rift between Beijing and Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea.

Senior U.S. Senator Carl Levin criticized Egypt's "weak" efforts Sunday to pressure its ally Hamas to reduce tensions in the bloody conflict between Gaza's Islamist rulers and their enemy Israel.

"It's pretty weak so far from what I can tell. The Egyptians have a real interest here in the region not exploding and the peace agreement continuing to be abided by," said Levin, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will seek a meeting of the so-called Middle East quartet over the Gaza crisis when he holds talks with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Asia this week, the Russian news agency Ria Novosti said Sunday.

Russia has condemned as "disproportionate" the Israeli blitz on the impoverished Gaza Strip, where 64 Palestinians have been killed while three Israelis have been killed in rocket attacks by Palestinian militants since Wednesday.

U.S. President Barack Obama Sunday said it was "preferable" for the Gaza crisis to be ended without a "ramping up" of Israeli military action, as fears mounted of a new invasion of the Hamas-run territory.

"Israel has every right to expect that it does not have missiles fired into its territory," Obama said, adding, "if that can be accomplished without a ramping up of military activity in Gaza, that is preferable".

The White House denied Saturday having heavily edited talking points to UN Ambassador Susan Rice about the deadly attacks on a U.S. mission in Libya to remove references to terrorism.

"The only edit that was made by the White House and also by the State Department was to change the word 'consulate' to the word 'diplomatic facility,' since the facility in Benghazi was not formally a consulate," Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters aboard Air Force One.

Rocket attacks fired on Israel by Palestinian militants in Gaza were a "precipitating factor" in the conflict that has engulfed the two sworn enemies, a top U.S. official said Saturday.

Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said both President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agree that de-escalation is preferable, provided that Hamas ceases firing on Israel.