GAZA (AFP) -- Islamic resistance movement Hamas on Sunday said it would attend a conference to be held in Syrian capital Damascus in November to rival a U.S.-sponsored so-called international Middle East peace conference.

“Hamas and (its political supremo) Khaled Meshaal will participate in this conference in Damascus,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP.
Zuhri said the aim of the rival meeting “is to reaffirm our rights, including Jerusalem and refugees, and to reject any attempts to strip us of any of our rights, especially the attempt to do so at the international conference.”
Islamic Jihad said it would organize the conference on November 7 in Damascus, ahead of the U.S. meeting expected to take place in Annapolis, Maryland.
Hamas has been boycotted by the Palestinian Authority since it took control of Gaza in June, has called on Arab countries to boycott the U.S. meeting.
Syria has warned that it would not attend unless the overall Israeli-Arab conflict was discussed, including Syria’s Golan Heights, which Israel captured in 1967 and annexed in 1981.