Snowstorm batters Mideast

Beirut: A Syrian man and young boy died in cold weather in Lebanon as a major storm dumped rare snow on parts of the Middle East Wednesday, bringing misery to thousands of Syrian refugees.
The local Red Cross agency said the bodies of the two Syrians, including the six-year-old boy, were found dead in the Shebaa region of south Lebanon.
A security source told AFP the dead were Syrian refugees who had been crossing the mountainous border between Syria and Lebanon, where temperatures fell as low as minus 7 degrees Celsius (20 Fahrenheit).
Their deaths came as a major storm struck the Middle East, hitting Syrian refugees living in makeshift camps throughout Lebanon and disrupting schools and roads in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
Many refugees in Lebanon were trapped in their tents by the heavy rain and snow, struggling to stay warm in temperatures hovering around zero degrees.
The UN’s refugee agency distributed cash and fuel coupons to more than 80,000 refugee families ahead of the storm, which forced the closure of all Lebanese ports and briefly shut Beirut’s international airport.
It warned however that “serious gaps” remained in provisions for the refugees during the storm.
In Majdalun, close to the eastern town of Baalbek, around 40 tents were cut off from surrounding villages by a thick layer of snow, an AFP photographer said.
“There is a lack of food and heating materials,” said one man who had left his tent.
“We ask charities to intervene. We are scared that the tents will collapse under the weight of the snow.”
Heavy snowfall also cut several roads in mountainous areas of Lebanon, where more than a million Syrians fleeing civil war have claimed refuge.
“I’ve been a refugee here for two years but this is the worst winter I’ve seen,” said Mohammad Al-Hussein, who lives in an east Lebanon camp with his wife and five children.
“We feel humiliated,” he added.
The influx of more than 1.1 million refugees has tested Lebanon’s limited resources, and this week the government began imposing unprecedented visa restrictions on Syrians in a bid to stem the number of arrivals.
In Israel and the Palestinian Territories, hundreds of schools were closed. Across Jerusalem, the streets were largely deserted and few people ventured out to brave the high winds and intermittent rain, AFP correspondents said.
Ahead of the storm, the education ministry announced the closure of schools across Jerusalem and the surrounding area, as well as in Jewish settlements throughout the occupied West Bank and much of northern Israel.