Adding to the multi-layered meaning of the name, it is also said that in times in which the city's Roman or Byzantine authorities prohibited Jews from entering Jerusalem, they used to come and look at their former capital from this vantage point.

Access to the hospital and university campus was through a narrow road, 2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi) long, passing through the Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

[11] Arab sniper fire on vehicles moving along the access route became a regular occurrence, and road mines were laid.

[11] Seventy-eight Jewish doctors, nurses, students, patients, faculty members, and Haganah, and one British soldier were killed in the attack.

[12] Fortnightly convoys carrying supplies to the university and hospital located in the Israeli part of the demilitarized zone on Mount Scopus were periodically held up by Jordanian troops.

[13] Article VIII of the 1949 Armistice Agreements signed by Israel and Jordan in April 1949[14] called for: [T]he normal functioning of the cultural and humanitarian institutions on Mount Scopus and free access thereto; free access to the Holy Places and cultural institutions and use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives; resumption of operation of the Latrun pumping station; provision of electricity for the Old City; and resumption of operation of the railroad to Jerusalem.

Seen from the Israeli perspective, which is easier to adopt due to archival accessibility, one may say that every move that the state of Israel made within the bounds of the enclave was designed to assert its sovereignty while at the same time consolidating and expanding its territory.

The Arabs were requested not to work closer than fifty metres from the fence unless prior permission was granted by the Israeli police.

[15] Construction of the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University began in 1918 on land purchased from the Gray Hill estate.

It is named for the Biblical figure Bezalel (Hebrew: בְּצַלְאֵל, romanized: Bəṣalēl), who was appointed by Moses to oversee the design and construction of the Tabernacle in Exodus 35:30-35.

There was a plan to use the Cave of Nicanor as a national Pantheon of Zionism, but due to circumstances (the area of Mount Scopus after receipt of Israel's independence was an enclave, surrounded by the West Bank territorial possessions of Jordan), this project was not implemented.

In 1939, the Hadassah Women's Organization opened a teaching hospital on Mount Scopus[23] in a building designed by architect Erich Mendelsohn.

In 1948, when the Jordanians occupied East Jerusalem and blockaded the road to Mount Scopus, the hospital could no longer function.

[23] In 1960, after running clinics in various locations, the organization opened a medical center on the other side of the city, in Jerusalem's Ein Karem neighborhood.

[23] On April 13, 1948, a civilian convoy bringing medical supplies and personnel to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus was attacked by Arab forces.

Kiryat Menachem Begin, named after former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and also known as Kiryat HaMemshala, is a complex of government buildings in East Jerusalem located between Sheikh Jarrah in the north, adjacent to Mount Scopus in the east and Ammunition Hill in the west.

Tabachnik Garden is a National Park located on the southern slopes of Mount Scopus, next to the Hebrew University.

Inside the park there are two lookouts, one facing eastward towards the Dead Sea and the Judean Desert, the other westward towards the Temple Mount.