RAMALLAH, Thursday, January 27, 2022 (WAFA) – Ramallah was blanketed in white on Thursday after a snowstorm hit the occupied territories and the larger Middle East region.
Residents of the West Bank city woke up this morning to views of snow shrouding the city as a snowstorm pummeled the region, bringing an accumulation of 20 centimeters of snow to Ramallah, al-Bireh, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron and Nablus.
Blizzards started on Wednesday evening and continued into early Thursday morning, cloaking in white the mountain peaks at an altitude of +700 meters above sea level in the dawn and early morning hours and dumping as much as 20 centimeters (eight inches) of snow.
The storm forced public institutions, schools, universities and businesses to close.
Whereas the heavy snowfall closed traffic arteries in the southern West Bank district of Hebron, it has a lesser impact on traffic in the other West Bank cities.
In Jerusalem, the city’s iconic Golden Dome of the Rock wad dusted in snow as Jerusalemites went out playing in the snow and having fun.
However, Israeli police chased and detained 23 Palestinians from the occupied city purportedly for having fun with the snow, and removed a Palestine flag that was hoisted at Al-Aqsa Mosque complex.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Civil Defense crews worked to clear traffic arteries across the West Bank cities and deal with accidents.
In the West Bank, PCD crews said that they responded to 400 incidents, including 15 fires, with one house fire resulting in the death of a young man and his sister in Adh-Dhahiriya.
In the Gaza Strip, medics confirmed that a toddler died as a result of freezing temperature in Khan Younes district.
In Bethlehem district, Israeli forces brutally assaulted a member of the Central Operations Room, a body put in place to assist PCD in bad weather conditions, as he preparing to remove snow blocking the western entrance of Beit Fajjar town.
The Palestinian Meteorological Department said that torrential rain showers and freezing temperature are expected across the occupied territories through the end of the week as wind could reach 70 km/h and hour and warned of high sea waves, low visibility and slippery roads at the weekend.
K.F.
