A senior Hamas leader said on Wednesday that Palestinian factions will hold a conference in Gaza in parallel with Damascus wider conference against a US-hosted Mideast peace conference.

"The (Gaza) conference aims to support the resistance and maintain the Palestinian rights and principles," Hamas lawmaker Mahmoud Zahar told reporters in Gaza.

Earlier, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who will join the US-sponsored Middle East peace conference, sent a number of his aides to Syria to convince the Syrian leadership to prevent the holding of Hamas-sponsored Damascus conference.

"Syria will not listen to Abbas or those who control Abbas," Zahar said.

The Palestinian president of rival Fatah movement has once asked Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "to stop Hamas on its limits", "but al-Assad told him (Abbas) that Syria hosts the Palestinian factions because they are resistance factions and they are not subject for trade," Zahar noted.

It was reported that Hamas, Islamic Jihad (Holy War) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) will participate in Damascus conference.

Abbas' Palestinian National Authority (PNA) fears that Hamas may succeed in forming a body like the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) after the conference.

(Xinhua News Agency November 1, 2007)