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Injured civilians come to a hospital in Aleppo during the Syrian civil war, October 2012

A civilian in time of war is a person who is not a member of a country's military and any other fighting group. This is what the word means under the laws of war. Civilians are the opposite of soldiers and combatants, who fight in wars.

In an international armed conflict, civilians are generally protected by international humanitarian law from being harmed except:

• Nationals under their own state authority except for refugees of the occupying power living in occupied territory prior to hostilities as long they don't commit crimes after hostilities or that violate their own laws which are also ordinary criminal offenses under the law of the occupied state.

• Nationals of a neutral state who find themselves in a recognized territory of a belligerent nation as long their state maintains diplomatic relations with a belligerent country

• Nationals of a co-belligerent (i.e., allied) state as long their state maintains diplomatic relations with a belligerent nation