Jewish burial at the Mount of Olives cemetery stopped in 1948 and resumed 19 years later, after the Six-Day War. During Jordanian rule from 1948 to 1967, the site suffered widespread damage: Israel’s State Comptroller reports that tens of thousands of graves were desecrated. After 1967, restoration and security became government responsibilities, but the Comptroller found that substantial action was delayed for years.
Burial halted in 1948
Before the 1948 war, the cemetery held about 60,000 graves, according to the Jewish Virtual Library’s historical account. With Jerusalem divided and the cemetery inaccessible to Jewish families, burial there ceased. The State Comptroller’s review confirms that burial stopped completely in 1948 and resumed only after the Six-Day War in 1967. These dates establish a clear interruption in the cemetery’s modern history.
Damage during Jordanian rule
The State Comptroller’s report describes tens of thousands of desecrated graves and says the cemetery was damaged and devastated during Jordanian rule. That official finding supports the scale of destruction without relying on frequently repeated exact totals that lack a clear counting method. The Comptroller’s Hebrew-language report also estimates that the cemetery today contains over 60,000 graves across about 300 dunams.
A 1967 Israeli letter circulated at the United Nations also raised the condition of the cemetery and restrictions on access during Jordanian rule. The UN record reproduces that letter and its attached Israeli government account. It provides contemporary Israeli documentation, while the later State Comptroller review supplies the institutional assessment of restoration, upkeep, and security.
Restoration and continuing maintenance
From September 1968 onward, Israeli governments adopted decisions concerning restoration, maintenance, and security. The Comptroller found that some steps were taken but that treatment of the cemetery remained delayed for many years. In addition, damage did not end immediately after 1967: the Jewish Virtual Library account records grave desecrations in 1975–79 and later incidents. That chronology is why claims of an immediate end to all vandalism are inaccurate.
The cemetery is active today, with more than 60,000 estimated graves. Maintenance includes grave rehabilitation, access routes, paths, and security arrangements, but specific camera counts or claims about the effect of surveillance require dated official documentation. The cemetery’s sections and historical periods provide context for the scale of the preservation task. Its history calls for precise dates: burial halted in 1948, resumed after 1967, and restoration has been a long-running responsibility since then.