Royal Army College

Lesson Overview

The four principles tell a soldier how to fight within the law. This lesson names the people and things those principles exist to protect, and the plain duties a soldier owes each. It covers civilians and civilian objects; the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked of any side; medical and religious personnel and their units and transports; prisoners and others in custody; aid and humanitarian workers; the special care owed to women and children; the distinctive emblems that mark protection; and cultural property, places of worship, the natural environment, works holding dangerous forces, and the things a population needs to survive. One idea runs through all of it: these protections are owed by need and by status, never by which side a person is on.

Lesson 03 taught the principle of distinction, the duty to separate combatants and military objectives from civilians and civilian objects and to direct force only at the former. This lesson sets out who and what falls on the protected side of that line. The aim is not to memorise a list of legal categories but to see a protected person or object for what it is, in poor light, under stress, with little time, and to know at once the duty you owe it.

By the end you will be able to identify the persons and objects the law protects, recognise each on the ground by what marks it out, state the duties owed to each, explain what the red cross, red crescent, and red crystal mean and why their misuse is so serious, explain how a protection can be lost and how narrow that loss is, and explain why protection follows need and status rather than allegiance.

Key Terms

Civilian object: any object that is not a military objective; homes, schools, hospitals, shops, places of worship. Protected from attack.
Wounded, sick, and shipwrecked: persons, whether military or civilian, who need medical care and who refrain from any hostile act. Protected, and owed care, regardless of side.
Medical and religious personnel: those assigned to medical duties or to spiritual care of the forces; must be respected, protected, and allowed to do their work.
Hors de combat: literally "out of the fight"; a person who has surrendered, been captured, or been rendered defenceless by wounds or sickness, and who no longer resists. They may not be attacked.
The distinctive emblems: the red cross, the red crescent, and the red crystal on a white ground. They mark medical protection and are not decoration.
The white flag (flag of truce): a signal that the bearer wishes to parley or to pass safely for a peaceful purpose, such as surrender or collecting the wounded; it is not in itself a sign of surrender, and it must be respected.
Perfidy: killing, injuring, or capturing an enemy by abusing a protected status, including misuse of the distinctive emblems or of the white flag. A serious offence.
Objects indispensable to survival: the things a civilian population needs to live; food, crops, livestock, drinking water, irrigation. Protected from attack and destruction.
Cultural property: the buildings and objects holding a people's heritage; places of worship, monuments, historic sites, works of art, archives, and the museums and libraries that house them. May carry a blue shield emblem.
Works and installations containing dangerous forces: dams, dykes, and nuclear electrical generating stations, whose destruction could release forces that drown or poison a population. Specially protected even when they are military objectives.

Protection follows need and status, not side

Before naming the protected, fix the idea that governs them all. The law does not ask whose side a wounded man is on before it requires his care, nor whose flag flies over a hospital before it forbids the attack. Protection attaches to what a person or thing is, a civilian, a wounded enemy who has stopped fighting, a doctor, a marked ambulance, and to the need that flows from it. Your own comrade and the enemy's wounded, once out of the fight, are owed the same. This is the Combat First Aid course's first principle stated in the language of the law: a wounded person is a wounded person, and care is owed by their need and by nothing else. Nationality, conduct, and which side a person fought for do not change the protection they receive.

The law is built this way for a reason a soldier can use. Status and need can be read on the ground, quickly and in good faith: a man with his hands up and no weapon, a woman carrying a child, a building marked with a red cross, a field of standing crops. Allegiance often cannot be read at all, and where it can, it is the judgement most distorted by fear, by anger, and by the loss of comrades. A law that turned protection on which side a person belonged to would fail in the very moments it is most needed. So the law fixes protection to what can be seen and what is owed, and removes the question of side from the soldier's hands. This is a mercy to the soldier as much as to the protected: it gives a clear duty where feeling would give none.

The law protects two great classes, persons and objects, and over both it lays a set of signs that make protection visible. Hold this map and place each section that follows into it.

   WHO AND WHAT IS PROTECTED

   PROTECTED PERSONS                     PROTECTED OBJECTS
   -----------------                     -----------------
   - Civilians not taking direct         - Civilian objects (homes,
     part in hostilities                   schools, shops, farms)
   - The wounded, sick, and              - Medical units and transports
     shipwrecked of ANY side               (hospitals, ambulances)
   - Medical and religious personnel     - Cultural property and places
   - Prisoners and others in custody       of worship
   - Aid and humanitarian workers        - Objects indispensable to
   - Special care: women and children      survival (water, food, crops)
                                         - Works holding dangerous forces
                                           (dams, dykes)
                                         - The natural environment

   Made visible by the PROTECTIVE EMBLEMS:
   red cross | red crescent | red crystal | white flag of truce | blue shield

   The rule over all of it:
   protection follows NEED and STATUS, never which side a person is on.

Civilians and civilian objects

The largest group the law protects is the civilian population: everyone who is not a member of the armed forces and is not taking a direct part in the fighting. Civilians must never be made the object of attack. With them are protected civilian objects, all the things that are not military objectives: homes, schools, hospitals, shops, farms, places of worship. A house is not a target. A school is not a target. Where there is genuine doubt whether an object normally used for civilian purposes is being used for the fighting, the law presumes it is not, and it stays protected.

How does a soldier recognise a civilian? Not by a uniform, for civilians wear none, but by the absence of the things that mark a combatant: they do not carry arms openly as part of a fighting force, they are not engaged in a hostile act, they show no hostile intent under the rules in force. The very young, the old, the sick, a person at work in a field or a shop, a family on a road, are civilians on their face, and the law treats a population as civilian unless and until individuals within it are seen to be fighting. The presence of a few armed people in a crowd does not make the crowd a target; it makes those few, and only those few, and only while they fight, a lawful object of attack. To treat presence in a place as proof of hostility is the error the manual names target conflation, and it is the error this lesson is meant to prevent.

A civilian keeps this protection unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities, the narrow exception set out in the last lesson; a civilian object keeps it unless it is actually turned to military use and so becomes a military objective. Short of that, the soldier's duty is plain: the civilian population and its everyday objects are to be spared, not attacked, and protected so far as the soldier can from the dangers of the operations around them. Sparing is the first duty but not the whole of it; where a soldier can keep civilians out of harm, by a warning, by a route chosen to avoid them, by holding fire until they have cleared, the law expects that care to be taken.

The wounded, the sick, and the shipwrecked

Among the oldest duties in all of this law is the duty owed to the wounded, the sick, and the shipwrecked: persons, soldier or civilian, who need medical care and who have ceased to take any hostile part. This covers the wounded and sick on land, and the shipwrecked, those in peril at sea from a sunk or downed vessel or aircraft, who are not still fighting. The wounded enemy who has laid down the fight is no longer a combatant in the eyes of the law; he is a person in need. The law names this condition hors de combat, out of the fight, and it covers anyone who has surrendered, been captured, or been disabled by wounds or sickness, so long as they do not resist. A man who is wounded but still firing is still a combatant; a man who is wounded and has stopped is protected. The difference is his conduct, not his injury alone.

The duty has two parts, both positive. First, the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked must be respected and protected: not attacked, not abused, and shielded from harm and from pillage. Second, and this is the part that asks a soldier to act, they must be searched for, collected, and cared for. After the fighting, as far as circumstances allow, a soldier looks for the wounded, brings them in, and sees that they are treated, owed to all of them with no distinction other than medical need. The enemy's wounded are sorted and treated by the same rule as your own, by how badly they are hurt and what can be done for them. This is exactly the principle the Combat First Aid course teaches: you treat by need and survivability, never by who a person is, and to ration care by allegiance would not be triage but misconduct.

The positive part is the one a soldier must brace for, because it runs hardest against feeling. To search for and bring in the enemy's wounded, perhaps the comrades of men who were trying to kill you minutes before, asks more than merely holding fire. The law asks it because the alternative, leaving the wounded where they fall, is a slow killing the law will not permit, and because a force that collects the enemy's wounded earns the same care for its own when the day goes against it. The duty is owed "as far as circumstances allow": no soldier is asked to cross fire-swept ground to reach a casualty. But once the fighting has passed and the ground can be worked, the wounded of every side are looked for and brought in. This is the Army's standard and the law's command alike.

Prisoners and others in custody

When an enemy surrenders, is captured, or falls wounded and ceases to resist, they pass out of the fight and into a soldier's power, and from that instant they are protected. The person who a moment ago was a lawful target is now a person who may not be attacked, abused, or humiliated, and who is owed humane treatment in all circumstances. This protection does not wait for a camp, a questioning, or the cooling of tempers; it begins at the moment of capture, which is exactly the moment, with the fighting still ringing and a comrade perhaps just fallen, when prisoners are most often abused and most need the law to hold.

Recognising a person who has passed into custody is usually plain: a fighter who throws down his weapon and raises his hands, a crew who climb from a wrecked vehicle, a wounded man who no longer resists, a person taken and held by your own force. The signal of surrender, hands raised, weapon dropped, a white cloth shown, must be honoured; a soldier may not fire on a man who is plainly trying to give himself up, and may not refuse to take prisoners. From that moment the soldier's task changes from fighting to safekeeping. The full drill for holding a person, the duties owed, the limits on questioning, the records that prove lawful treatment, and the special position on home soil where the civil police hold primacy, is the whole subject of Lesson 06. Here it is enough to fix the principle and the recognition: a person in custody is a protected person, owed care by need and never by merit, from the first moment they are in your hands.

Medical and religious personnel, units, and transports

The wounded cannot be helped unless those who help them are themselves protected. So the law extends a special protection to medical personnel, the doctors, medics, nurses, and orderlies assigned to care for the wounded and sick, and to religious personnel, the chaplains and others assigned to the spiritual care of the forces. They must be respected, protected, and allowed to do their work. They may not be attacked, and they may not be hindered in reaching and treating the wounded. If they fall into a soldier's hands they are not ordinary prisoners: they are not to be treated as prisoners of war, are to be allowed to go on caring for the wounded, and are released when their services are no longer needed to do so.

You will know medical and religious personnel by the distinctive emblem they are entitled to wear, the armlet bearing the red cross, red crescent, or red crystal, and by an identity card that records their protected status. The mark is the sign that this person is to be let through and let work, not fired upon and not obstructed. A medic moving to a casualty under the emblem is doing precisely what the law protects; a soldier who understands this lesson clears the way rather than blocking it.

The same protection covers medical units and transports: hospitals, dressing stations, field medical posts, and the ambulances, medical vehicles, ships, and aircraft that carry the wounded and the means to treat them. These must not be attacked, and must not be misused to shield military objectives from attack. A marked ambulance is not a target; a field hospital is not a target. You recognise them by the same emblems carried large, a red crescent on a vehicle's side, a red cross flag flown over a building, and by their plain function, the carrying and treating of the wounded. This protection lasts unless the unit or transport is used, outside its medical purpose, to do the enemy harm, in which case it may lose protection only after a warning with a reasonable time limit has gone unheeded. Short of that, the rule is simple: medical work is to be left alone and helped, not attacked.

Aid and humanitarian workers

Alongside the medical service stand the people who bring relief to a population in need: the staff of humanitarian organisations, relief and aid workers, and the personnel and convoys carrying food, water, shelter, and medical supplies to civilians who would otherwise go without. The law protects them and the relief they carry. Where civilians are in need and the relief is impartial, given by need and not by side, it is to be allowed through, and those who bring it are to be respected and protected, not attacked, robbed, or obstructed. To attack a clearly marked relief convoy, or to plunder the aid it carries, is a serious violation, for it strikes at the very civilians the law exists to shield.

A soldier recognises humanitarian workers by their marked vehicles and clothing, the badges of known relief organisations, the agreed signs of a relief operation, and often by prior notice that a convoy is to pass. For the Royal Kaharagian Army this is not a distant matter. The Army's own humanitarian work, taught in the Caring for Those in Need course, places its members on the same ground as relief workers, sometimes working beside them, and the duty to respect and assist impartial aid is the same duty the Army asks others to show its own welfare parties. Aid given by need is the civilian counterpart of care given by need, and the soldier who has grasped the principle of this lesson protects both.

The special protection of women and children

The law protects all civilians, but it gives women and children a special and additional protection, because they are the most exposed to harm in war and the least able to shield themselves. Children are owed particular care and the means of their survival and development; they must be spared the worst effects of operations, and the law sets its face against drawing them into the fighting, against recruiting them as fighters and against using them in hostilities. A child is a civilian first and foremost, and the sight of a child near an operation is a reason for greater care, not less. Where children have been associated with an armed group, they are treated above all as victims to be protected, not as enemies, a point the Army's protection-of-civilians study makes plainly.

Women, too, are owed special respect and protection, in particular against any form of sexual violence, assault on their dignity, and the dangers that fall heaviest on them in conflict and displacement; women who are expectant or nursing mothers are owed added care. Sexual violence of any kind is absolutely forbidden by the law and by the Army's standards, in all circumstances and against anyone, and a soldier has a positive duty to prevent it where able and to report it always. For the Royal Kaharagian Army, a small home-defence force whose tasks are as likely to be protective and humanitarian as anything else, this protection is close to the centre of the work: much of what the Army will do among a population in distress is, in plain terms, the protection of women and children, and it is to be done as a first duty and not an afterthought.

The distinctive emblems

To make this protection visible on the battlefield, the law gives the medical service a mark the world can recognise: the red cross, the red crescent, and the red crystal, each displayed on a white ground. The three are equal in standing and meaning; which is used reflects custom and choice, not any difference in protection. A soldier should know all three on sight.

   THE PROTECTIVE EMBLEMS

   Red cross on white      Red crescent on white   Red crystal on white
   +-----------+           +-----------+           +-----------+
   |    _|_    |           |    __     |           |    /\     |
   |   |_|_|   |           |   /  )    |           |   /  \    |
   |    _|_    |           |   \__)    |           |   \  /    |
   |     |     |           |           |           |    \/     |
   +-----------+           +-----------+           +-----------+
   Equal in meaning. Each marks MEDICAL protection. Hold fire; let them work.

   The white flag of truce
   +-----------+
   |           |   A request to parley or to pass safely for a
   |  (blank   |   peaceful purpose (surrender, collecting wounded).
   |   white)  |   Respect it. It is not itself surrender.
   |           |
   +-----------+

The emblem is not decoration, and not a badge of nationality. It is a sign that the person or object bearing it, the medic's armlet, the flag over the field hospital, the cross on the ambulance, is protected by the law and must not be attacked. Seeing it places a duty on the soldier: hold fire, and let the bearer work.

Beside the medical emblems stands one more sign every soldier must read correctly, the white flag, the flag of truce. A white flag signals that the person showing it wishes to communicate peacefully or to pass for a peaceful purpose, to surrender, to ask for a pause, to come out and collect the wounded, to parley. It must be respected: a soldier does not fire on a person who comes forward under a white flag in good faith. Be exact about what it means. The white flag is not, by itself, a declaration that the enemy has surrendered; it is a request to stop fighting long enough to talk or to act peacefully. And like the medical emblems, it must never be abused: to show a white flag in order to draw the enemy out and then attack is perfidy, of the same grave kind as misusing the red cross.

Because the emblem's whole worth lies in being trusted, misusing it is among the gravest offences a soldier can commit. To fly the red cross over an ammunition store, to put it on a vehicle carrying fighters, or above all to feign protected medical status in order to kill, injure, or capture an enemy, is perfidy, a serious violation and, in its worst forms, a war crime. The reason runs through the whole law: if the emblem is once used as a trick, soldiers stop trusting it, and the next real ambulance, the next genuine hospital, is fired upon, and the wounded it carries die. The treachery of a few destroys the protection of all. The emblem is therefore never to be misused, and never to be ignored.

Places of worship and the natural environment

Two of the protected objects deserve a fuller word before the list below, because each carries a particular trap. The first is the place of worship. A church, a mosque, a temple, a shrine, is both a civilian object and, very often, a piece of cultural property, the buildings and objects that hold a people's heritage and are treated at length in a later section. To attack a place of worship without genuine military necessity is the kind of act the manual names as manifestly unlawful. A soldier does not fire on a place of worship, does not quarter troops in it, and does not use it as a firing position, short of a true and pressing necessity. Cultural property of every kind may carry its own protective sign, a blue shield on a white ground, and a soldier who meets it should understand it the way they understand the medical emblems, as a mark of protection to be respected.

   THE BLUE SHIELD (cultural property)
   +-----------+
   |   \     / |   Marks a protected monument, place of worship,
   |    \   /  |   museum, archive, or historic site.
   |     \ /   |   Do not attack. Do not use for a military purpose.
   |      V    |   Treat it as you treat the medical emblems.
   +-----------+

The second is the natural environment, which the wider law protects against widespread, long-term, and severe damage, and forbids treating as a weapon, the poisoning of land and water, the wanton destruction of forests, the wrecking of the natural world to deny it to an enemy. The environment is not a free space on which a soldier may visit any harm that helps the moment; it too is to be spared so far as the operation allows, both for its own sake and because the population depends on it. This connects directly to the protections that follow, for the line between wrecking the environment and starving a population is often no line at all.

Works containing dangerous forces

A special and grave rule guards a small class of objects whose destruction would not merely damage them but unleash a force that drowns or poisons a population: dams, dykes, and nuclear electrical generating stations, the law's "works and installations containing dangerous forces." The danger is plain. Break a dam or a dyke and the water it holds back may sweep away whole communities downstream; wreck a nuclear generating station and what it contains may poison a wide country. Because of this, the law gives these works a protection that reaches further than ordinary: they are not to be attacked, even when they qualify as military objectives, if the attack may release the dangerous forces and cause severe losses among the civilian population. They may carry a special sign of three bright orange circles in a line. A soldier should treat a dam, a dyke, or a power station of this kind as something to be left strictly alone, for the harm in getting it wrong is measured not in a building but in a flooded valley or a poisoned land.

Cultural property and the means of survival

Two further protections complete the picture. The first is cultural property: the buildings and objects that hold a people's heritage, places of worship, monuments, historic sites, works of art, archives, and the museums and libraries that house them. These may not be attacked or used for military purposes, unless they have themselves been turned into a military objective, and even then only as a last resort and, where circumstances permit, after warning. Such property may carry its own protective sign, a blue shield on a white ground; a soldier who meets it should understand it the way they understand the medical emblems, as a mark of protection to be respected.

The second is objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population: the things people must have to live, foodstuffs and crops, livestock, drinking water and its supply, and the irrigation that sustains them. The law forbids starving civilians as a method of warfare, and so forbids attacking, destroying, or removing these things in order to deny a population its sustenance. A soldier does not poison the well, burn the standing crop, or wreck the waterworks to drive people out or starve them. To take from a population the means of its survival is not a tactic the law allows; it is a thing the law plainly forbids.

Fix why this protection is drawn so firmly. To destroy a population's food and water is to attack the population itself, only more slowly and more cruelly than by direct fire, and it falls hardest on exactly those the law most protects, the children, the old, the sick, the nursing mother. A force that wrecks the means of survival does not defeat an enemy army; it punishes a people. So the rule is not a matter of degree but a plain prohibition: the well, the crop, the herd, the reservoir, the irrigation channel, are not to be attacked, destroyed, or removed for the purpose of starving civilians. The single exception the law admits is narrow and turns on a force's own territory and imperative military necessity; for a soldier on operations the working rule is the simple one, you do not take from people the things they must have to live.

How protection is lost, and how narrow that is

A soldier must understand not only that these protections exist but how they can be lost, because misunderstanding the loss of protection is how a lawful soldier slips into an unlawful act. The rule is the same for persons and for objects, and it is deliberately narrow. A protection is lost only by what a person does or how a thing is used, and only for as long as that lasts. Where there is doubt, the law presumes protection.

For persons, the case is the civilian who takes a direct part in hostilities. A civilian who picks up a weapon and joins the fighting, who plants a device, who directs fire on your force, loses the protection of a civilian for such time as they take that direct part, and may be engaged while they do so. Two things bound this tightly. First, it is the conduct that lifts protection, not the suspicion, the sympathy, or the presence; a civilian who supports a cause, who lives where fighters move, who once fought yesterday and is now unarmed and going about ordinary life, has not by that alone lost protection. Second, the loss lasts only as long as the direct part lasts; the civilian who throws down the weapon and ceases to fight, or who is wounded and no longer resists, has passed back into protection, and to attack them then is unlawful.

For objects, the case is the civilian object used for a military purpose. A house from which the enemy fights, a school turned into a strongpoint, a bridge essential to the enemy's movement, may become a military objective by that use, and lose its civilian protection for as long as the use continues. Again the limit is strict: it is the actual military use that lifts protection, not a guess, a possibility, or a past use that has ended, and when the military use stops the object's protection returns. Over every such judgement sits the rule from the last lesson: where there is doubt whether a person is a civilian, or whether an object normally civilian is being used for the fighting, the law requires the soldier to presume protection. In doubt, you treat the person as a civilian and the object as civilian, and you hold.

   HOW PROTECTION IS LOST

   PERSON (civilian)                     OBJECT (civilian object)
   -----------------                     ------------------------
   Lost ONLY while taking a DIRECT       Lost ONLY while actually USED
   part in hostilities.                  for a military purpose.

   Returns the moment the person          Returns the moment the military
   stops fighting / is hors de combat.    use ends.

   Suspicion, sympathy, presence,         A guess, a possibility, or a
   or yesterday's act is NOT enough.      past use is NOT enough.

   IN DOUBT -> presume the person is a civilian and the object is civilian.
   IN DOUBT -> protection stands. Hold.

This narrowness is the whole safeguard. A protection that could be lost on suspicion, or that did not return when the fighting stopped, would be no protection at all. The law makes the loss turn on conduct and use, makes it last only as long as they do, and tips every genuine doubt towards protection, so that the soldier's caution runs the safe way. When you are unsure, the law has already decided for you: you protect.

In Practice: The Marked Ambulance at the Checkpoint

A section holds a checkpoint on a road outside a market town when a marked ambulance approaches at speed, its red crescent plain. Inside are a wounded driver and, the soldiers see, two wounded enemy fighters no longer armed or resisting. Every protection in this lesson meets here at once. The emblem must be respected and the vehicle not fired upon; the medical crew, known by their armlets, must be allowed to work; the wounded, including the two enemy fighters now out of the fight, hors de combat, are owed care by their need alone, sorted by how badly they are hurt and by nothing else, exactly as the first-aid course teaches.

Test the section's understanding against the harder turns the moment can take. Suppose one of the wounded fighters still grips a weapon and will not let it go: he is not yet hors de combat, and the section may require him to give it up before they are safe to approach, but a man too badly hurt to resist does not lose his protection because a weapon lies beside him. Suppose a rumour reaches the checkpoint that fighters sometimes move arms in ambulances: that is a possibility, not the actual misuse the law requires, and it does not turn this marked ambulance into a target; the section may search the vehicle to satisfy itself, but it does not fire, and in genuine doubt it treats the ambulance as protected. Suppose a frightened crowd of civilians, women and children among them, has gathered at the roadside drawn by the commotion: they are protected persons owed particular care, and the section's duty is to shield them from the danger of the moment, not to add to it. None of it turns on which side the wounded are on. The soldier who has understood this lesson does not weigh allegiance at the ambulance door; they weigh need, they read the signs the law has given them, they presume protection where they are unsure, and they let the law's protections do what they are for.

Check Your Understanding

The lesson says protection follows need and status, not side. Explain what this means, using the wounded as your example, and connect it to the Combat First Aid principle of care by need alone.
What do the red cross, red crescent, and red crystal mean, and what does a white flag mean? Why is misusing an emblem or a white flag to gain a military advantage treated as so serious an offence?
Explain how a civilian can lose protection and how a civilian object can lose protection. In each case, say how narrow the loss is, when protection returns, and what the law requires a soldier to do when in doubt.

Reflection (write a short paragraph): The duty to search for, collect, and care for the wounded of any side can be hard to keep toward an enemy whose comrades have just been trying to kill you. Why does the law insist on it all the same? Think about what this duty protects, including for your own side, and what understanding would help you keep it when feeling tells you otherwise.

Summary

Protection follows need and status, never which side a person is on. This is the Combat First Aid principle of care by need alone, stated in the language of the law. Status and need can be read on the ground; allegiance is the judgement most distorted by fear and loss, so the law keeps it out of the soldier's hands.
Civilians and the civilian population must never be attacked, and civilian objects (homes, schools, hospitals) are protected unless actually turned to military use; in doubt, an object is presumed civilian. Recognise a civilian by the absence of arms and hostile conduct, not by allegiance, and never treat mere presence as proof of hostility.
The wounded, sick, and shipwrecked of any side must be respected, protected, and actively searched for, collected, and cared for, with no distinction other than medical need. A person hors de combat (surrendered, captured, or disabled and not resisting) may not be attacked.
Prisoners and others in custody are protected from the moment of capture, owed humane treatment by need and not by merit; the full handling drill is Lesson 06. Aid and humanitarian workers and the relief they carry must be respected and allowed through. Women and children are owed special, additional protection, in particular against sexual violence and against drawing children into hostilities.
Medical and religious personnel, units, and transports must be respected, protected, and allowed to work; they are not ordinary prisoners, and they are known by their emblems and identity cards. The distinctive emblems (red cross, red crescent, red crystal) and the white flag of truce mark protection and are not decoration; misusing them to gain advantage is perfidy, a serious offence.
Cultural property and places of worship (often marked by a blue shield), the natural environment, works containing dangerous forces (dams, dykes, power stations), and objects indispensable to survival (food, crops, livestock, water, irrigation) are protected; starving civilians as a method of warfare is forbidden, as is releasing dangerous forces upon them.

Who and What Is Protected