City Line (Jerusalem)

[1] A few months later, in April 1949 during the meetings in Rhodes over the 1949 Armistice Agreements at the end of the war, the Dayan and el-Tell map was found to be the only official document indicating the line dividing Jerusalem that was agreed upon by both parties.

The rough map lines had cut across neighborhoods, streets and houses, and were the source of many disputes between the two states.

The crossing was managed by Jordanian and Israeli customs, and primarily served diplomats and UN personnel, as well as Christian pilgrims at Christmas.

At noon on June 5, 1967, the Jordanians occupied the British Government House from the UN, which marked the beginning of the ground fighting in Jerusalem.

Immediately upon the end of the war, fences and concrete walls dividing streets and neighborhoods were torn down, the fortifications were dismantled, and the mines were removed.

East of Talpiyot the line crosses the ridge containing the 1933 British Government House (Armon HaNetziv) in the demilitarized No Man's Land under UN auspices where the headquarters of UN observers who supervised the armistice was located.

From the Abu Tor ridge the line went down to the Hinnom Valley and Sultan's Pool, crossing through the remains of neighborhoods of Bete Shamaa and Jurat al Anab ("Hutzot Hayotzer"), on the way including in the Israeli territories Mount Zion, adjacent to the Old City on the south, but with no road leading to it.

From there the line continued north, where it separated the western wall of the Old City (where the Jaffa Gate and the Tower of David are located) from the Mamilla neighborhood and the Jerusalem Old Town Hall.

It is also in this area where the Mandelbaum Gate border crossing was agreed upon, which enabled the passage between the two parts of the city and the Israeli connection to its Mount Scopus enclave.

The northern section of the line, in the area of Jerusalem's contemporary neighborhoods of Ma'alot Dafna and Ramat Eshkol, passed between the neighborhoods of Shmuel HaNavi and Sanhedria on the Israeli side, and the Jordanian positions on Ammunition Hill, the Police Academy, and Givat HaMivtar.