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Subscribe to RSSIsraelis and Palestinians woke Friday to a rare sight in the usually temperate Holy Land: a thin blanket of snow.
Snow fell in Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, the Galilee, and the West Bank cities of Hebron and Bethlehem as residents and tourists alike ventured out to enjoy the unusual winter weather.
Local media reported that this was the first time in four years that snow had fallen in Jerusalem.
Marco Longari / AFP - Getty Images
A Palestinian man and his son stand next to a snowman outside their house on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Ramallah as wintry weather swept through the region on March 2, 2012.
Marco Longari / AFP - Getty Images
Israelis play in the snow in Jerusalem on March 2, 2012.
Marco Longari / AFP - Getty Images
Palestinian youths play with snowballs in Jerusalem on March 2, 2012.
Abir Sultan / EPA
Two Haredi (Ultra Orthodox ) Jews make their way through a snowstorm in the Mea Shaarim neighborhood of Jerusalem on March 2, 2012.
Bernat Armangue / AP
Ultra-orthodox Jewish youths dress a snowman in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighborhood on March 2, 2012.
Marco Longari / AFP - Getty Images
Snow falls on an olive tree in the West Bank city of Ramallah on March 2, 2012.
Darren Whiteside / Reuters
Melted ice trickles off the hat of a man as he visits the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem's Old City on March 2, 2012.
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Global Warming? Whatever, it seems like a good enough excuse for Israeli snipers to murder some more innocent Palestinian children as usual. The Israelis rarely miss any opportunity to continue their crimes against humanity.
Nice pics, but the captions... True, it could have been worse. "Palestinian" youths in Jerusalem? Are they Palestinians because they haven't bothered to register for citizenship, or are they Arab Israelis? Did the photographer ask? Maybe... Also what's this crap about the Western Wall being "Judaism's holiest prayer site". Who makes up this stuff? I won't go off about how terms like "Judaism", "holy", and "prayer" are misleading, but who declared the Western Wall most holy. It's only the outer retaining wall of the structure which included the areas defined as the kodesh ("Holy") and the kodesh kodeshim ("Holy of Holies"), that is to say, the Temple. If we can call any place our "holiest prayer site", it's the Temple Mount, on the other side of the Western Wall. Fine point, maybe. I'm just making a big deal out of this because people take it for granted that the Dome of the Rock should be there of the Temple. As though the Roman and Islamic conquests are excusable because they pre-dated the advent of morality among white folks. Also, the photographers clearly covered some ground in the "West Bank", so how about showing some of the hundreds of thousands of Jews who live in the area and how they're perfectly normal people who also like to play in the snow?