Snowball Fights In Middle East
A rare winter storm dumped more than two feet of snow on parts of the Middle East over the weekend, closing schools and businesses in the desert kingdom of Jordan and bringing children and adults alike out to build snowmen and pelt each other with snowballs.
By Sunday morning, parts of northern Jordan had received as much as 2½ feet of snow, and more was reported in some outlying Lebanese and Syrian villages.
In one neighborhood of Amman, men in long robes and women wearing traditional black dresses with their faces covered slipped and slid while playing in the powder, as snowball fights broke out across the region.
"It's fun, but I keep slipping because I trample on my robe," said Mohammad Abu-Roman, 19, his robe soaked up to his waist as he played in the snow.
Outside the University of Jordan's campus in suburban Amman, students battled against each other with snowballs. Pedestrians and cars were not spared. "I kept asking them to stop, but they wouldn't listen," lamented a police sergeant directing slow-moving traffic along the snow-covered road.
The Middle East is accustomed to mild winters, although big storms have occasionally battered the region. Last February, Jordan received one to three feet in what was described as the kingdom's worst snowstorm since 1950.
The wintery blanket stranded motorists and shut down schools and businesses on the first day of the work week for much of the region. Air traffic, however, was unaffected. In Lebanon, about 10,000 security, army and civil defense personnel were deployed and some 400 stranded motorists were rescued.
It also caused the Jordanian parliament to postpone a session to debate the 2004 budget.
Lebanese media reported one death, a man who was electrocuted Saturday when strong winds snapped a power line in the Bekaa Valley.
Icy roads prompted Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to put off a round of talks scheduled for Sunday, aimed at preparing a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Palestinian counterpart Ahmed Queria. No new date was set. Palestinian ministries were shut Sunday.
In Jerusalem, the weight of the snow caused an old wall to collapse on the ramp leading to the Temple Mount, a site holy to Jews and Muslims. No one was injured, and prayers in the adjacent women's section at the Western Wall were canceled.
Many people enjoyed a rare feeling of normalcy as weather led the news instead of reports of violence in neighboring Israel, the Palestinian territories and Iraq.
"It's weather reports on the news for a change," said Samiha Baz, who helped her two children build a snowman in an Amman residential neighborhood where pine and palm branches crashed down under the weight of snow.
Plows worked to clear Amman's hilly streets, where children were sledding down in plastic tubs and bowls.
The storm, packing winds of up to 50 mph, was expected to let up by Monday.
An official with Syria's meteorology department said communication with several villages had been cut off, but people throughout the rest of the country were unable to get to work or school Sunday.
Meanwhile, torrential rain and strong wind battered the country's northwest coastal regions with waves as high as 23 feet, forecasters said.
In snow-spared southern Jordan late Saturday, a French Embassy employee and two French women were in a traffic accident blamed on poor visibility due to a sandstorm. They were hospitalized with head injuries and broken bones.