**1. Introduction**

Global-scale disasters such as the recent earthquake in Haiti, striking without warning, cause massive loss of life, and produce widespread damage to local infrastructure, including medical facilities [1]. Disasters can lead to great loss of life especially if they hit densely populated regions with limited resources and poorly constructed habitation. Furthermore, damage to roads and transportation systems and difficulties in the rescue and evacuation process can impede accessibility to care [2].

Many countries and organizations around the world developed logistic and medical systems designed to cope with disasters. Dispatched foreign field hospital (FFH) is one type of medical relief system. The World Health Organization/Pan-American Health Organization defines a field hospital as "a mobile, self-contained, self-sufficient healthcare facility capable of rapid deployment and expansion or contraction to meet emergency requirement for a specified period of time [3]."

The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) Medical Corps developed a model of airborne FFH [4]. This model was structured to deal with disaster settings, requiring selfsufficiency, innovation and flexible operative mode in the setup of large margins of uncertainty regarding the disaster environment. The current study is aimed to critically analyze the experience, gathered in ten such missions deployed in nine countries (Armenia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Turkey, India, Haiti, Japan, Philippines, and Nepal).

The rest of the study is organized as follows. We provide a literature review of healthcare humanitarian aid to disaster areas and a formal definition of a foreign field hospital. The methodology being used is case study. Data was collected by interviews conducted in Israel with senior military staff who actively commanded the humanitarian missions in the disaster areas. Supplemental information was gathered from secondary sources cited in paper. We analyze a series of ten case studies over time period of three decades that provide insights in regards to FFHs deployed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to assist in different types of disasters around the world such as Haiti, Turkey, India, Rwanda, Armenia, and the Philippines. We conclude by sketching future research opportunities that can further develop this field of study.
