Why is there no **not equal** comparison in DynamoDB queries?

I try to query my table Tinpon with a secondary index yielding a partition-key category and sort-key tinponId. My goal is to exclude items with certain tinponIds. My first thought would be to make a negative compare: keyConditionExpression = "category = :category AND tinponId != :tinponId" but there is only a equal = comparison. Then I tried serval other methods (with sadly do not exist): keyConditionExpression = "category = :category NOT tinponId = :tinponId" keyConditionExpression = "category = :category AND tinponId <> :tinponId" keyConditionExpression = "category = :category AND tinponId < :tinponId AND tinponId > :tinponId" Following the AWS guide there is no not equal comparisson. Why so? And is there a way to query DynamoDB excluding a list of ids or is the only option to retrieve a whole bunch of items and filter them later manually?