The protesters called on the New Zealand government to end its neutral stance on the conflict.

Speaking to the protesters, Green Party legislator Keith Locke said the people of New Zealand wanted their government to take action.

'What we have to do is not sit on the sidelines,' he said. 'We must be part of a coalition of the peaceful in this world.'

Police said there was no trouble from the chanting and clapping marchers, who delivered a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully said earlier the government was not prepared to choose sides in the conflict.

Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman and former prime minister Helen Clark said she was concerned the United Nations Security Council had been unable to agree on a further call for a ceasefire in the conflict.

'There is no road to peace between Israel and the Palestinians through this conflict in Gaza, but rather a deepening polarisation between the two sides which makes it even more difficult for a long-term settlement to be achieved,' Ms Clark said.

Jews from neighbouring Australia also condemned Israel's invasion of Gaza in a statement on Tuesday. More than 100 Australian Jews, including two authors and a former federal minister described the action as 'inhuman' and 'abominable'.

'We are Australian Jews who join thousands in Israel and around the world condemning ongoing Israeli military attacks on Gaza,' the signatories said.

'Together with Israeli peace group Gush Shalom, we condemn the current war as 'inhuman, superfluous' and 'abominable'.'

The group, which includes the Australian environment minister from 1972-1975 Moss Cass, novelists Linda Jaivin and Sara Dowse and Australian Greens politician Ian Cohen, acknowledged Israel's right to protect itself.

But it said rockets launched from the Palestinian territory into Israel could not be used to justify the 'grossly disproportionate military assault on Gaza,' saying Israel had violated a fragile truce with Hamas in November.

The group also said the Israeli attacks would not bring about peace.

'On the contrary, the assault on the population of Gaza will only inflame hatred of Jews and of the state of Israel while doing nothing to protect the lives of Israelis.'

'Above all, it will undermine the prospects of joining with peace-seeking Palestinians to negotiate a lasting, just solution to the conflict.' The signatories called for an immediate end to the attacks on civilians by Palestinians and Israelis.

The statement was rejected by the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council as ill-informed and indifferent to Israel's suffering.

About 84,000 Australians, accounting for 0.4 per cent of the population, identified themselves as Jewish in the 2001 census.

Elswhere in the Asia Pacific region on Tuesday, Philippine capital Manila saw more than 100 activists hold a noisy protest outside the heavily-secured Israeli embassy to demand an end to the Jewish state's invasion of Gaza.

The activists chanted anti-Israel slogans branding it as a puppet of the United States and hoisted posters of dead Palestinian children and a section of the Gaza Strip going up in smoke after an Israeli air raid.

'End the invasion, free Palestine', the protesters chanted. 'Stop the siege of Gaza'. One banner read 'US-Israel terrorists'. Armed police guarded the office building housing the embassy, but the protesters later disbanded peacefully. -- AFP