Freakish Storm Blankets Middle East With Snow

Snow lay thick on the domes of the mosques and churches of Jerusalem’s Old City and on the battlements of the ancient wall that surrounds it.

At the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest shrine, worshipers playfully pelted each other with snowballs. And in the Negev Desert, where snow has not fallen for half a century, Bedouins awoke to find a thick white layer on the backs of their camels, sheep and goats.

It was all the product of a rare storm that swept the Middle East on Friday, dumping as much as 3 feet of snow in the hardest-hit areas, blocking roads and cutting off cities throughout the region.

The storm began Thursday and dropped about a foot of snow on many parts of Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. It blocked roads, stranded cars and cut power lines.

In Israel, six people died, including a Palestinian man in Jerusalem whose roof collapsed under the weight of the snow. Two homeless men died of exposure, two motorists were killed in accidents on slippery roads, and one man perished in a fire caused by a kerosene heater.

In Jordan, two gravely ill people died at home because ambulances were unable to drive them to hospitals, and a third man died of a broken neck after slipping on the steps to his home.

In southern Israel, Bedouin tribespeople woke up to a coat of snow unseen in the Negev for generations.

“It’s on the camels. It’s on the sheep. Everything is covered with snow,” said Mohammed abu Jabbar, a young Bedouin.

Some of the Bedouin who live in shacks were hospitalized with mild frostbite. The army distributed blankets and food in Bedouin villages.

The unusual weather brought hundreds of Jerusalem residents into the streets and the parks. Some snapped pictures of trees glistening as they sagged under the weight of the snow. Children built snowmen and threw snowballs.

In the West Bank, Israeli soldiers and Palestinian police worked together to rescue hundreds of stranded motorists.

The snow was good news for Israel’s only ski resort, at the top of Mt. Hermon in the Golan Heights. Last year the resort was closed for lack of snow. On Friday, the snow was 23 feet deep at the upper level.

Across the frontier, roads in the Lebanese mountains were blocked, although the highway between Beirut and the Syrian capital, Damascus, was plowed open later.