Reporter who called Oct 7 ‘moment of triumph’ to speak at London Muslim conference

From the Telegraph

A reporter from Iran’s Press TV who described the Oct 7 attacks on Israel as a “moment of triumph” will speak at a London Muslim conference.

Latifa Abouchakra, a presenter at the banned Tehran-backed channel, is scheduled to speak at a seminar, entitled Palestinians are humans not heroes, during the Global Peace and Unity festival.

Last year, ITV was forced to apologise after platforming Ms Abouchakra as a British Palestinian concerned about prejudice without explaining her background. The apology came after a video emerged of Ms Abouchakra praising the Oct 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas, in which the terror group killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostage, sparking over a year of conflict in the Middle East.

During a broadcast on the day of the attacks, she told viewers: “As fragile as a spider’s web, the Zionist entity is shaking with fear. In an early morning shock, Palestinian resistance factions from Gaza launched an unprecedented three-pronged attack on the entity.

“What ensued was the homecoming of at least 1,000 Palestinians from the resistance factions into the fragile Zionist entity. Over 100 settlers have been taken as prisoners of war by the resistance – the vast majority are members of the occupation forces.”

In an Instagram post on the same day, she said: “Nothing will ever be able to take back this moment, this moment of triumph, this moment of resistance, this moment of surprise, this moment of humiliation on behalf of the Zionist entity.”

In the ITV interview, Ms Abouchakra said she had been a victim of Islamophobia,

Last week, The Telegraph revealed that the Metropolitan Police had distanced itself from the Global Peace and Unity festival after it was called a “supporting partner” of the event on its website.  A Met Police spokesman said: “The MPS is not a supporting partner, and is not contributing financially to the event.”

Another speaker billed for the event is Ismail Patel, the founder of Friends of Al-Aqsa, which is a coalition partner of pro-Palestinian marches in the UK. On Oct 7 last year, he reposted content on X, formerly Twitter, that referred  to Hamas as “freedom fighters” and the Israeli hostages as “occupation soldiers”.

Also listed is Fatima Barkatulla, who posted on Oct 8 that year: “This Palestinian uprising is 100% legitimate. It is an uprising again [sic] European settler colonialism.”