"The IOL campaign aims to remove the psychological scars of the displaced people," Abu-Hendi said.

SIDON, Lebanon — A campaign championed by IslamOnline.net to help bomb-shocked Lebanese overcome deep psychological scars left by a bloody five-week Israeli offensive in Lebanon has borne immediate fruits.

"An IOL delegation, which rushed to Lebanon two days after the war ended, has organized a training course to help rehabilitate Lebanese victims," said Samar Doweidar, the head of IslamOnline.net's Social Section.

Some 150 Lebanese youths have been trained during the IOL course in several Lebanese cities including Tripoli, Beirut and Sidon.

"The IOL delegation has also printed 3,000 copies of a psychological guide to help teach the unspecialized deal with the displaced people and with those who had been through difficult times during the war," Doweidar said.

Doweidar said that the two-week IOL campaign is coordinated with several Lebanese NGOs.

"They underlined the need to provide psychological support to the displaced people to help ease their sufferings in their current trial."

Up to 1,287 Lebanese civilian were killed when Israeli launched a wide-scale offensive in Lebanon on July 12.

The 34-day Israeli blitz, which came to a halt on August 14, under a UN-brokered truce, also displaced one million people and left the hard-won Lebanon's infrastructure in tatters.

The UN Development Program (UNDP) had said that the Israeli onslaught has brought Lebanon's 15-year economic and development drive to square one.

It estimated that overall Lebanese economic losses from the month-long war totaled "at least 15 billion dollars, if not more."

Lebanese authorities estimated last week that direct structural damage inflicted by the Israeli offensive reached 3.6 billion dollars, including 15,000 housing units, 80 bridges and 94 roads destroyed or damaged.

Response

The IOL campaign has gained a positive response in the war-torn country.

"There has been an increasing demand to benefit from the campaign in helping the affected people," said Dr. Dalia el-Shemi, an organizer of the IOL campaign.

Dr. Wael Abu-Hendi, a delegation member, said the delegation is working on psychologically "stabilizing" volunteers, who have hand-on experience.

"The IOL campaign aims to remove the psychological scars of the displaced people and psychologically prepare the volunteers so that they can cope with moving and heart-breaking stories," he said.

IOL has launched a series of campaigns to help the Lebanese people overcome the consequences of the devastating Israeli offensive.

It has championed a proposal to have a galaxy of 250 world dignitaries lead convoys of urgently-needed relief aid to the war-ravaged Lebanese people.

Children took the brunt of the war in terms of death or psychological toll.

Almost half of the estimated 1,150 people killed by Israel are children.

They make up one third of those wounded in the random Israeli bombardment, according to a count by Britain's The Independent, which has launched a fund-raising campaign for Lebanese children in cooperation with Save the Children.

Lebanese artists have come up with the theatre therapy as a new creative way to allow children to vent their anger on the bloody Israeli onslaught.