Spoken like someone with no knowledge of the subject:
“The law of armed conflicts clearly forbids the killing or wounding of an enemy who … is … hors de combat.” - examples of war crimes that could be considered as grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions include: “Denial of quarter (i.e., killing or wounding an enemy unable to fight due to sickness or wounds or one who is making a genuine offer of surrender).”
Sorry, but the
@Oldman1 does have a point. Back in Desert Storm, we were briefed as to what qualified as a legal combatant, because, like it or not, Muslim militaries do not see any separation between 'soldier' and 'civilian'. That may offends some people but that is for a different debate. I still have my folder of that brief to this day.
A retreating enemy force
DOES NOT qualify as "hors de combat" or out of action, especially if that enemy force is still fully armed, which the retreating Iraqi force were.
The tank busters had a question regarding the tank's legitimacy as a target. The tank is treated like a rifle. If the crew is out of the tank, that would be the equivalent of an infantryman dropping his rifle. That would be
hors de combat. But if the tank is rolling, we do not know if the tank is still ammo-ed and/or under orders to conduct combat, hence, a rolling tank is a legitimate target, even if the tank is rolling in retreat. If any moving vehicle display the white flag, which is universally regarded as a signal to surrender, then it is up to the individual to make the call and situations like this are problematic. A tank is an offensive platform. A car is not, even though it can be turned into a weapon. A rolling tank displaying a white flag would not convince anyone that it is
hors de combat, even if the crew is outside on the shell. So for any vehicle that was originally designed for combat, the best way for the crew to survive is to abandon it.
In order to fully qualify as
hors de combat you must be
VISIBLY disarmed. In the case of an airborne combatant, like my F-16, dropping the landing gear is a
VISIBLE sign of taking myself out of combat. The moment I raise gear, that is a sign that I put myself back into combatant status.