Seated in a plush Vienna hotel, Rafik Schami is half a world away from the unrest tearing Syria apart. But that doesn't stop the author caring and worrying deeply about the country he fled 41 years ago.

Even in the best-case scenario, the award-winning Schami told Agence France Presse in an interview, creating a democratic Syria once "dictator" Bashar Assad has gone will take at least a decade of "sweat and tears,"

Gaza's streets, empty and quiet during a week of violence, were once again flooded with cars and people on Thursday as life returned to normal after a truce deal between Hamas and Israel.

The contrast between the deserted roads of the past eight days, and the scenes of joyful chaos on Gaza City's thoroughfares on Thursday was almost comical.

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.

The spread of Syria's civil war has made it increasingly difficult for civilians to escape the conflict, and many are afraid to seek medical care, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Thursday.

"Through the spreading of the fighting people lose ... escape routes out of the fights," Peter Maurer told reporters in Stockholm after a meeting with Sweden's Development Aid Minister Gunilla Carlsson.

Iraq's parliament speaker pushed on Thursday to ease Arab-Kurd tensions on a visit to Iraqi Kurdistan, as the two sides traded accusations about reinforcements being sent to disputed areas.

Tensions are high in areas of northern Iraq that the autonomous Kurdish region wants to incorporate over the strong objections of Baghdad, and there is a threat of conflict between Arab and Kurdish security forces.

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."

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi assumed sweeping powers on Thursday, putting him on a collision course with the judiciary and raising questions about the country's democratic future.

The move, just a day after Morsi took diplomatic centerstage in brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza's Islamist Hamas rulers, earned him the same derisive monicker of "new pharaoh" leveled at veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak before his ouster in a popular uprising last year.

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.