text: Conduct of Hostilities
  Incidental Damage to Enemy Property
  Damage to enemy property incidental to combat operations that is reasonably related to overcoming
  enemy forces is justified by military necessity and lawful. For example, the movement of armed forces and
  equipment may damage roads or fields.
  ENEMY MOVABLE PROPERTY ON THE BATTLEFIELD (WAR BOOTY)
  Much of an enemy’s movable property on the battlefield, sometimes referred to as “war booty,” is
  subject to seizure by the opposing State. Military units may seize any enemy public movable property on the
  battlefield. Property is public if it belongs to the enemy State or an agency of the State. In general, enemy
  private movable property on the battlefield may also be seized, but only if the property is necessary and
  indispensable for the conduct of war. This includes arms, ammunition, military papers, or property that can
  be used as military equipment (for example, as a means of transportation or communication). However,
  certain types of military equipment used for clothing, feeding, or personal protection (for example, helmets
  and gas masks) may not be seized from POWs, and should remain in their possession.
  All enemy property that is captured or found on the battlefield becomes the property of the capturing
  State. During international armed conflict, personal property recovered from enemy dead becomes the
  property of the United States for the purpose of returning it to the next-of-kin of the deceased. The individual
  service member or civilian accompanying the force who captures or finds such enemy property acquires no
  title or claim to it.
  PILLAGE PROHIBITED
  Pillage is prohibited, both generally (HR art. 28, 47) and specifically with respect to the military
  wounded, sick, and shipwrecked (GWS art. 15; GWS Sea art. 18); POWs (see GPW art. 18); and civilians
  (see GC art. 16, 33). This applies in international armed conflict, occupation, and non-international armed
  conflict. The same applies to cultural property, which is addressed in paragraphs 5-19 through 5-21 and 6-
  104.LOAC imposes affirmative obligations to prohibit and prevent pillage (GWS art. 15; GWS Sea art. 18;
  1954 Hague art. 4(3)).
  Pillage is the taking of private or public movable property (including enemy military equipment) for
  private or personal use (10 U.S.C. § 950t(5)). It does not include an appropriation of property justified by
  military necessity. For example, if no time is available for ordinary requisitions to provide food and supplies,
  or the local inhabitants have fled so that ordinary requisitions are unavailable, the taking of food does not
  constitute pillage. In the medieval era, pillage served as a form of compensation for private armies, but it
  ceased to be regarded as lawful with the widespread adoption of standing armies at the end of the 18th
  century. The later prohibition of pillage was intended, in part, to maintain discipline among the armed forces.
  Pillage is also referred to as looting (UCMJ art. 103) and plunder.
  FEASIBLE PRECAUTIONS SHOULD BE TAKEN TO MITIGATE THE BURDEN ON CIVILIANS
  In seizing or destroying enemy property, feasible precautions should be taken to mitigate the burdens
  imposed on civilians. For example, in U.S. practice, religious buildings, shrines, and consecrated places
  employed for worship are used only as aid stations, medical installations, or for the housing of wounded
  personnel awaiting evacuation, provided in each case that a situation of emergency requires such use.
  Similarly, if armed forces use a private residence, the inhabitants and owners must be treated humanely and
  with as much consideration as the circumstances permit. In particular, the armed forces should generally
  allow the inhabitants to continue to live there and should not expel them if alternate shelter is not available.
  If imperative military necessity requires the removal of the inhabitants, however, then effort should be made
  to give them notice and to aid them in taking their essential possessions. If the armed forces take anything,
  they should leave a note to this effect. There is no obligation, however, to protect abandoned property in the
  area of active operations.
  LOAC imposes no obligation to compensate for loss of, or damage to, private property when such
  loss or damage is imperatively demanded by the necessities of war, including damage incidental to combat
  operations. There is no obligation to compensate for incidental harm to civilian property due to combat