Bottom line your friend booked a place knowing it had a strict cancellation policy . There are lots of places she could have chosen which have a moderate or flexible policy if she wasn't sure about her arrangements.
As you know guests can cancel free of charge within 48 hours, so your friend must have been holding the booking for a while before she wanted to cancel to be liable for the fees.
So she can either ask the host if they are prepared to let her cancel and give her a full refund.
Or she can suggest that she cancels and if the host gets a replacement booking that s/he refunds here. In that way there is no risk to the host. This would be the fairest approach to both parties as the host may have lost out on longer term bookings during a peak period to accommodate her stay.
Either case of course she will lose her Airbnb fee.
What did you advise her to do?