Actually snow on the West Bank (ie Jerusalem etc) and East Bank (Amman etc) is not so uncommon, more common than London. And it can snow. When I was in Petra, about 250km further south, but rather higher up, they had photos of snow 3 feet deep from the previous Feb. Though we were enjoying mid-winter temperatures in the range 15-20C and persistently sunny, which was very nice, but actually we were lucky. You have to remember that they are quite high up. I think Jerusalem and Amman are around 2500 feet, and Petra is perhaps at about 4000 feet. Both Lebanon and Israel have ski slopes.

There has been snow in Baghdad this year, and there was snow in Algiers last year. Now they really were a surprise.