Ayham’s sentencing followed the implementation of a new Israeli law in November 2024 permitting the imprisonment of children under 14.
A 14-year-old Palestinian boy from Jerusalem entered an Israeli prison on Sunday to serve a one-year sentence handed down by Israeli occupation courts. This sentence makes Ayham al-Salaymeh the youngest Palestinian currently held in Israeli prisons.
In an interview with Arab48, Ayham’s father, Nawaf al-Salaymeh, extensively documented the process leading up to Ayham’s imprisonment.
Before his incarceration, Ayham had already endured 14 months under house arrest.
According to his father, Ayham was only 12 years old when Israeli forces first detained him along with his brothers and cousins – Mustafa, Ahmed, Moataz, and Mohammed – in January 2023 in Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem.
On May 24, 2023, Israeli forces reportedly raided the Salaymeh family home in the early hours, detaining Ayham, his older brother Ahmed, and their cousins.
“Every prisoner who’s inside with you is your brother. They’re all like you — imprisoned for their love of the homeland’
Ayham Al-Salaymah’s father advised his 14 year old son before he enters Israeli prison for his unjust and inhuman sentence. pic.twitter.com/lIy5maxAtv
— Leyla Hamed (@leylahamed) December 1, 2024
Ayham was later placed under house arrest, preventing him from attending school, engaging with his community, or participating in daily activities.
Despite the constraints, Israeli authorities continued to pursue the young boy, demanding harsher sentences as he approached the age of 14.
In September 2024, he was sentenced to a year in prison for allegedly throwing stones at illegal Jewish settlers, a common charge against Palestinian children.
Ayham “spent a year and a half in house arrest in his family’s home in the Ras Al-Amud neighborhood in occupied Jerusalem, but this punishment was not enough for the Israeli authorities, who ruled on Tuesday to send him to actual prison for an additional year, on the eve of World Children’s Day,” Arab News reported.
His sentencing followed the implementation of a new Israeli law in November 2024 permitting the imprisonment of children under 14.
Remember Ayham Salaymeh? His dad picked him up from school and is taking him on a last tour in the city in Jerusalem before he needs to turn him in to serve a year in Israeli prison for allegedly throwing a rock at a settler.
Ayham is 14, he will be the youngest prisoner. pic.twitter.com/bUfHD6H9HY
— cheri 🔻 (@cheriblossom__) December 1, 2024
Ayham’s father expressed deep concern over the conditions his son would face in prison, citing reports of mistreatment, abuse, and neglect of Palestinian prisoners. “We were not surprised by the decision because we have been under occupation since 1948… but the bigger shock is the conditions of the prisons,” Salaymeh said.
“You do not know anything about the detainee… and I will not be able to provide him with clothes or money, or communicate with him,” he added.
“I still do not understand how I will be imprisoned even though I am a child,” Ayham told Arab News before being incarcerated.
“My peers play football or are registered in a football club, go to school and play with their friends and families, but we, the children of Palestine, are deprived of these things,” he added.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
