As if he is an adult an Israeli court sentenced child Ayham Bassem Sabbah to 35 years in prison and a fine of one million shekels. Ayham is a seventeen-year-old boy and he was arrested when he was 14 years old. He was charged with stabbing an Israeli soldier at the Rami Levy shopping mall in a settlement east of Ramallah in 2015.
Wounded and imprisoned
The Israeli occupation authorities didn’t care about the serious wounds the child Ayham and his friend Omar al-Rimawi sustained when they were shot and seriously injured. At that time they were reported to have been martyred but they were arrested with serious injuries.
Ayham was wounded in the right shoulder and left foot causing an artery to be cut from his hand. He underwent a surgery to implant an artery. He gradually began to improve and became able to walk on his feet.
The harshest sentence
Bassem Sabah the father of the child Ayham confirmed to the Palestinian Information Center that this harsh sentence is the first of its kind to be given to a minor indicating that this is part of the occupation’s mentality values and racism. “The Israeli occupation wants to impose its tyranny and oppressive laws on the Palestinian people” he says.
He adds: “Ayham is the first minor to receive this harsh judgment in the history of the occupation and the number of years he will spend in jails is very harsh for us but the hope is that Allah might send relief to all prisoners soon and this occupation will end and disappear.”
High spirits
As for the morale of the wounded child his father who was saddened by this unjust sentence points out: “Thanks God the morale of my child is good. His character is strong and has not diminished during the period of his arrest since 2015. He is the one who provides us with resoluteness when we visit him.”
“Ayham’s lawyer tells me that he entered the courtroom smiling and came out of it smiling too indifferent to the unfair sentence the number of years and the huge amount of money imposed on him as a fine” his father noted.
Media and human rights pressure
Sabah’s father expressed his satisfaction with the media and domestic interaction with his child’s case as a minor who was sentenced unjustly but he appealed that there should be an international and Arab human rights support for any Palestinian prisoner in Israeli jails especially minors women and sick prisoners.
“Unfortunately the occupation violates humanitarian and international laws because there is no international and Arab pressure on it to stop such violations. All the stories that come from inside the prisons suggest that the occupation largely violated these charters and treaties” he added.
Strong character
Ayham has a strong character despite his young age and innocent features which qualifies him to be steadfast in the face of the occupation and its oppressive laws and rulings. The second Israeli channel broadcasted an interview from inside the prison with him and he refused to say that he regretted what he did “and stressed that he will insist on his position even after twenty years of arrest because he belongs to an occupied nation which has a cause.”
He said during the interview: “We are a resistance generation and we were raised based on this. They thought that no one would resist and when they tried to uproot the resistance in the Second Intifada we were born going through the same path again as a younger generation.”
In that interview Ayham stressed that he was not hostile to Jews. He was hostile to the Jews who occupied the land of Palestine only. He stressed that he has carried out the attack even though he was good in in his studies and had no social problems.
Ayham is the eldest son of his four-member family: the father the mother Ayham and his brother Mohammed. His father moved from his hometown in Qalqiliya to Ramallah after studying at Birzeit University and is a teacher of science and mathematics in Ramallah.
