BEIRUT—For a few fleeting hours, residents of Syria’s capital dropped their guns for snowballs and traded hatred for laughter.

A rare snowfall that covered Damascus on Wednesday sparked an overnight outbreak of playfulness among Syrians, who momentarily ignored their bloody civil war and forgot their affiliations as dissidents, loyalists and even soldiers.

“Last night, for the first time in months, I heard laughter instead of shelling. Even the security forces put down their guns and helped us make a snowman,” Iman, a resident of the central Shaalan neighbourhood, said Thursday by Skype.

“It was the first time in a long time that I remember talking to our neighbours who are pro-opposition.”

Gloom has gripped Damascus for months, as the 21-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad edges closer to the capital, with gunfire and shelling echoing from its outskirts.

A winter storm ravaged Syria and its neighbours this week, flooding and freezing towns across the region.

In Israel on Thursday, the worst snowstorm in 20 years shut government offices, public transport and schools in Jerusalem and along the northern region bordering on Lebanon. An official said 10 to 15 cm. of snow had piled up in the centre of Jerusalem and more than that in outlying areas.

Many Palestinians in the hilly occupied West Bank were snowed in and dozens were forced to flee flooded homes.

But residents in Damascus said the snow briefly swept away their misery.

“We felt a smile that has been missing from our faces for almost two years and we were all just Syrians,” said Amin, a resident of central Damascus, speaking on the Internet. “For a few hours our hearts were as pure as the snow.”

The uprising against four decades of Assad family rule began as peaceful protests but has become an armed and increasingly sectarian conflict that has claimed more than 60,000 lives.

These days, Damascus streets are mostly empty after dark. Residents stay at home for fear of violence or kidnapping. Jittery soldiers guard checkpoints and public buildings from clashes and explosions that sometimes penetrate the heart of the city.

But on Wednesday night, residents in several neighbourhoods said they had stayed out until the early hours to enjoy the snow, teased by soldiers who usually stand in grim silence.

“We were out until 2 a.m. just playing … there were woman and children and men outside and no one was afraid,” a resident of Midan, a largely pro-opposition neighbourhood in Damascus, said via Internet. With the reality of war returning, however, he refused to give his name.

“Last night the soldiers threw snowballs at us from their checkpoints. Everyone started coming out and the soldiers would joke: ‘Oh no, is this a protest?’ ” he said.

For most, the snow truce offered little hope of better days, but some said it showed Syrians could still coexist in future.

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“I don’t think there is any hope we can stop this war — (Thursday) morning, I could hear the shelling again,” Iman said.

“But (on Wednesday), everyone loved each other. And I feel sure that one day we can live together again.”

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