OTTAWA - Canada donated $4 million for humanitarian aid in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip on Wednesday, while repeating its call for an "immediate and durable" ceasefire.
  
Ottawa will give $3 million to the United Nations relief effort and another $1 million to the Red Cross to help Palestinians caught in the fighting between Israeli forces and militant Hamas fighters, said Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon.

Meanwhile, Cannon said efforts were continuing to arrange the evacuation of 39 Canadians caught up in the confrontation.

Speaking after a Conservative government caucus meeting, Cannon reasserted Canada's position that the Palestinians' duly elected Hamas government is a "terrorist group."

Cannon said he's been talking to other foreign ministers about brokering a permanent peace deal in the area even as fighting resumed Wednesday after a three-hour lull was imposed to allow limited aid to reach civilians.

Israel launched its offensive Dec. 27 to halt repeated Palestinian rocket attacks on its southern towns. It's killed nearly 600 Palestinians -- almost half of them civilians, according to area officials. Ten Israelis have died.

"Here's a country, Israel, that over the course of the last several years have had continual rocket assaults and bombing on them," Cannon said.

"To that effect, of course, any country under the charter of the United Nations is allowed to defend itself -- and Israel defended itself."

Nevertheless, the rising civilian death toll in Gaza has drawn international condemnations and raised concerns of a looming humanitarian disaster.

In Toronto, police removed a group of Jewish women protesting at the Israeli Consulate on Wednesday. Demanding an end to the assault by Israeli forces, the protesters included writer-professor Judy Rebick and Judith Deutsch, president of the group Science for Peace.

The executive director of Palestine House, a Toronto-area community centre, said Canada is aligning itself with Israel and "twisting the facts" in order to justify its position.

"Israel was the one who beseiged Gaza -- closed all the border passing points to Gaza," Issam Yamani said in an interview. "Hamas was reacting to the Israeli acts."

Yamani called the Conservative government position "an ideological problem."

"Because Israel is a so-called democracy he has to support Israel and justify it whatever action it is taking," he said, adding $4 million in aid is not enough.

Rather than token donations, he said Palestinians "are waiting for Canada to pressure Israel and its allies to stop this madness against the Palestinians in Gaza."

"It's not a war between Hamas and Israel," Yamani added. "It is a war launched by Israel against the whole Palestinian population.

"The Palestinian people are expecting from the Canadian government at least to have a balanced approach. The $4 million is too little at this point in time in terms of the humanitarian tragedy the Palestinians are facing."

The stranded Canadians -- among 59 registered with Canadian consular authorities in the region -- are in relative safety away from the immediate fighting and could be moved at any time, although the top U.S. official in Gaza has said nowhere is safe.

The Foreign Affairs Department had planned to help 36 Canadians leave Monday, but the Israeli Defence Force, which controls movements in the territory, cancelled the operation.

"Yesterday, we were unable to find a way to see to it that the Canadians might leave in a secure atmosphere," Cannon said. "We are still working on this.

"As soon as security conditions will be in place, we'll see to it that the Canadians leave -- those who wish to leave."

More than half of Gaza's 1.4 million residents were without electricity or running water, thousands have been displaced from their homes and residents say food supplies are running thin.

Israel ordered a pause in its Gaza offensive for three hours Wednesday to allow food and fuel to reach besieged Palestinians. Cannon suggested that, while welcome, the move is not enough.

"We still continue to push and are very, very strong in the idea that we need an immediate ceasefire that is going to be durable and that will bring peace to the Middle East and that fundamentally will have two states living side-by-side democratically recognized as well as sovereign in their development."

An Israeli government spokesman welcomed the idea of an Egyptian-French ceasefire proposal -- as long as Hamas halts militant rockets and weapons smuggling.

In one of his first acts as prime minister, Stephen Harper made Canada the first country to cut off aid -- more than $30 million a year -- to the Palestinian Authority after Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections.

Hamas is considered a terrorist group by Canada and other Western nations because it is committed to destroying Israel.

"War is cruel, it's gruesome," Cannon said Wednesday.

"I think that what's important here is to be able to come and help those people who need to be helped through humanitarian channels while at the same time push and pursue for a durable ceasefire."