A Palestinian student living in the U.K. has revealed that 15 of her relatives have been killed in Israeli retaliatory air strikes, just one week after publicly praising the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel and claiming she was “full of joy” that Hamas had, for once, struck first.
Dana Abuqamar, the president of the Friends of Palestine organized in Manchester, told BBC News that an Israeli missile had been dropped on a three-story residential building belonging to her family back in Gaza, killing several members of her extended family.
She told the public broadcaster that those who died were “as peaceful as any person can get” in the war-torn region. Israeli authorities have called for hundreds of thousands of civilians to evacuate their homes near to the border with Israel ahead of an expected ground offensive.
The plight of Abuqamar’s extended family comes after a formidable response by the Israeli military to a surprise attack by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, which saw the Israeli border breached in multiple locations and over 1,400 civilians — including many women, children, and tourists — slaughtered as they attempted to flee the offensive praised by Abuqamar.
In a previous interview with Sky News right after the Hamas slaughter of Israeli civilians, the Palestinian student and activist expressed her pride and joy at what she described as Hamas’ resistance to Israeli oppression.
This Dana Abuqamar who is full of pride in Hamas' terrorist attack pic.twitter.com/2MzXV1SU2o
— timmyvoe2 ?????? (@timmyvoe240886) October 15, 2023“In terms of having family there, obviously, one would be worried about what is happening. A lot of residents right now are living in fear, but also they are full of pride,” she told journalists during a pro-Palestine demonstration in Manchester.
“This is the first time that something like this has happened in modern history,” she said of the Hamas attack. “For the first time, they are actively resisting, they are not on the defense. This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
“We are both in fear of how Israel will retaliate … but also we are full of pride. We are full of joy at what has happened,” she added.
Her remarks led to the University of Manchester announcing it would conduct an investigation into the nature of the comments made.
“We are investigating the television interview conducted by one of our students on Sunday and the comments they made about the current conflict in Israel and Gaza,” a spokesperson said.
“We have now written to the student informing them that a formal investigation has been initiated that will be led by a senior University academic.
“Any and all forms of racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, discrimination, and abuse have no place in our community,” they added.
Abuqamar, a current law student at the university who also oversees “media and diversity” on the committee of the university’s Bar and Advocacy Society, later claimed she had been misrepresented during the interview.
“The death of any innocent civilian should not be condoned ever, and we don’t condone it at all,” she told the BBC.
