Ammunition Hill was located west of a police academy, with a fortified trench connecting them. The site was built by the British during their Mandatory Palestine in the 1930s, and was used to store the police academy's ammunition. The Jordanian Arab Legion seized control of the hill during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, severing the link between Mount Scopus and West Jerusalem. In the wake of the 1949 Armistice Agreements, parts of Mount Scopus remained an Israeli enclave in Jordanian-held territory, with the Jordanians blocking access to Hadassah Medical Center and the campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on the hilltop.