Marines say insurgents have used at least one mosque as a firebase to attack American troops. Witnesses in the city have reported Marine snipers firing from another mosque's minaret on insurgents below.

There were too many dead and wounded for hospital workers in the besieged town to deal with.

"As soon as the Americans see a group of people in the streets, they shoot at them, people venture out only if their homes risk being bombarded or if they must carry the dead or wounded to the city's clinics," said Abbas Ibrahim, a 30-year-old Fallujah resident who was able to escape the city Friday.

"They put them in blankets and dart through the streets."

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Families were only able to leave the town from Friday, following the US marines' assault from Monday to flush out rebels responsible for last week's brutal murder of four US contractors.

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"Surgeons lack anesthetics and post-surgery medication," said Mohammed Ibrahim Abbas of the Red Crescent.

There have been very few reporters on the ground in Fallujah since the siege began a week ago, with the exception of an Arab news crew and some correspondents embedded in the rear areas of invading units. Locals say the Marines have had a free hand to slaughter them because the Western press is nowhere to be found.

Additionally, Fallujah residents say Marines are opening fire randomly on unarmed civilians and have attacked clearly marked ambulances, both violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which the United States is a signatory. Aid workers angrily pointed out bullet holes in the driver's side windshield of one ambulance, saying its operator had been lightly wounded by US troops firing as the emergency vehicle passed.

The guerrillas want US forces to withdraw from the town and for the siege around Fallujah to be lifted. The US military wants the insurgents to give themselves up and town leaders to hand over those responsible for killing the four Americans.

"The two sides have agreed to observe a 12-hour ceasefire tomorrow Sunday at 10:00 am," or 0600 GMT, a senior member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, Hatem al-Husseini, told AFP.

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Battles raged in Fallujah throughout the day despite the efforts to broker a peace and a marine was killed and another wounded, a marine statement said.

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The US-installed Governing Council issued a statement denouncing the onslaught as amounting to "collective punishment of innocent civilians" as well as insurgents.

The US-led occupation authorities has "asked for a ceasefire, for handing over those who took part in the mutilation and repeated riots."

"The demands of the two parties are logical and should be easy to satisfy," he said.

"We were driving in the car and we got wounded, me in the shoulder, her in the head, her in the hand," said one small girl, pointing to other wounded children sitting around her in the clinic.

"Why are they doing this to us? We are a family, they shouldn't treat us like this."

British rules of engagement only allow troops to open fire when attacked, using the minimum force necessary and only at identified targets.

The American approach was markedly different: "When US troops are attacked with mortars in Baghdad, they use mortar-locating radar to find the firing point and then attack the general area with artillery, even though the area they are attacking may be in the middle of a densely populated residential area.

"They may well kill the terrorists in the barrage but they will also kill and maim innocent civilians. That has been their response on a number of occasions. It is trite, but American troops do shoot first and ask questions later. They are very concerned about taking casualties and have even trained their guns on British troops, which has led to some confrontations between soldiers.

The Fallujah offensive has become an anti-American rallying cry across Iraq, with mosques on Sunday urging the faithful in Baghdad to donate food, blood, medicine - and white coffin shrouds - for the turbulent city.

Some members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council blame a series of bad calls by American officials in Iraq for the situation, by far the lowest point of the 1-year-old occupation of Iraq.

Critics say the military has used excessive force in moving to put down this past week's Shiite and Sunni uprisings and U.S. administrators have underestimated the depth of Iraqis' suspicion of American intentions.

U.S. handling, they say, has played into the hands of U.S. opponents in Iraq, raising the profile of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as well as the insurgents at a time when the focus should have been on the scheduled June 30 transfer of power to Iraqis.

"Everything points to the failure of the Americans' security policy in Iraq," said Mahmoud Othman, an outspoken member of the U.S.-backed Governing Council. "The Americans cannot solve the problems of Iraq because of their ignorance of the language, customs and traditions."

"It did not come as a big surprise to me that they are trying to settle problems with more than one party through military means," Othman, a Sunni Kurd, said Sunday.

U.S. occupation authorities say they had no choice but to act decisively to eliminate what they say was a threat to future Iraqi democracy - Sunni insurgents, who killed and mutilated four American civilians in Fallujah on March 31, and al-Sadr, who has repeatedly challenged the authority of the Americans and their Iraqi allies.

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But some Iraqi politicians have condemned U.S. military tactics in Fallujah in unusually strong language.

"It was not right to punish all the people of Fallujah, and we consider these operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal," said senior Sunni politician Adnan Pachachi, one of the United States' closest allies in Iraq.

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Relief convoys carrying donations from Iraqis, including Shiites, have been arriving at the mainly Sunni city, reflecting a broadening sympathy for the insurgents and the city's inhabitants.

"No Iraqi likes to see an imperial power like the United States beating up on people who are essentially their cousins," said Juan R. Cole, a University of Michigan lecturer and a prominent expert on Iraqi affairs. "There is a danger that the vindictive attitude of the Americans ... will push the whole country to hate them. A hated occupier is powerless even with all the firepower in the world," he said.

The Marines conducting the week-long operation in Falluja have been accused of firing indiscriminately on people in the city, killing women and children.

U.S. military spokesmen have strenuously denied those accusations, saying troops are trained to ensure all their actions are extremely precise and only combatants are killed.

A shaky ceasefire has held in Falluja for the past day, allowing tens of thousands of women and children to flee the besieged town for safety. Falluja has a population of around 250,000.

Those who have fled Fallouja, however, painted a picture of a city made unbearable by U.S. military tactics, and a populace ever more sympathetic to the armed uprising.

After months of house searches, arrests and slayings by U.S. forces targeting insurgents, the city was cordoned off by Marines last Sunday. Under siege, Fallouja has been battered by bombs and strafed with gunfire. Thousands of women, children and disabled people have streamed out in the last two days.

Families who reached Baghdad appeared in shock. Some were angry. Some wept. Others displayed no emotion at all.

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Marines vowed to pacify Fallouja about 10 days ago, after four U.S. security contractors were attacked by insurgents and a mob burned and mutilated their bodies.

In recounting the incident, Marwa indicated that it was the crowd's behavior - and not that of the killers - that she found questionable.

"The mujahedin killed them and left them alone," she said. "It was some of the mob that was there that pulled them apart."

Some of the women with whom she fled, though, said even the mutilation was understandable.

"Those people who dragged the Americans' bodies through the streets, they certainly had had a brother or a father killed by the Americans; they had burnt hearts," Umm Samir said.

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Numerous witnesses said U.S. forces made it impossible for many of the injured to reach the city's main hospitals, shot up ambulances and stopped people from burying their dead at the main cemetery; Marines have said the insurgents took up positions in mosques and used ambulances to ferry in weapons and fighters.

"You see when the mujahedin saw all the attacks, many, many men began becoming mujahedin," Marwa said. "The place is now filled with mujahedin; there is not a neighborhood in Fallouja that doesn't have mujahedin."

While the Americans blast instructions over loudspeakers, the local fighters have benefited from a dialogue with residents.

On Wednesday, insurgents came to Umm Marwan's door and told her to leave because they were taking up positions in the house behind hers and planned to fire on the Marines. That, the insurgents anticipated, would draw retaliatory fire and there was the chance that rockets could hit Umm Marwan's house.

The family rushed to find somewhere to go, but many relatives' houses were full. When the family explained the situation to the insurgents, they agreed to move their position.

Such small incidents create bonds and build support for the insurgents' cause. "We feel safe when we see the mujahedin," said Marwa as she adjusted her pale green headscarf.

City combat blunts the Marines' chief advantages: speed and awareness of what is ahead. Buildings create vast "dead spaces" where the enemy can hide. The cityscape hinders communications and prevents anything that flies low, like helicopters, spy drones and warplanes, from assisting friendly forces on the ground for very long. Life-and-death decisions must be made instantly: 90% of the targets are less than 50 yds. away and seen for only seconds. "When they start zinging RPGs in here, you can't really do anything about it," says Staff Sergeant Mike Conran. "It's really just dumb luck if you get hit."

Fleeing what she describes as a "massacre" that killed hundreds of Iraqis, Umm Muhanned left Fallujah two days ago with her husband and six kids. On their way to Baghdad, they were accompanied by several other families who also had no choice but to leave, at the risk of their lives, as the occupation forces were sealing off the town, allowing no one to enter or flee.

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Umm Muhanned was incapable of describing the life in the beleaguered city. "There are no words by which I can explain to you the situation we fled in Fallujah. Water and electricity are cut. No food. Nothing. Aid convoys were prevented from delivering supplies to us, except for a very little amount that was by no means enough, by no means proportionate to our needs, to the humanitarian tragedy in Fallujah."

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The United States' actions are allegedly in retaliation to the killing and mutilation of the four contractors, three of whom were Americans, who, according to Umm Muhanned, Dr. Ali, and many other Iraqis, were not civilians. "Even if we assume they were civilians," Umm Muhanned reflects, "thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed by the occupation forces, but no one has moved to condemn their death� as though the lives of American civilians are valuable while the lives of Iraqi civilians are worthless."

Forgotten are nine Iraqis, including three children and an ABC News cameraman, who were killed in a US raid on Fallujah, five days before the killing of the four contractors.