CAIRO, January 15. /TASS/. Hamas’ allies will expand their operations in the Middle East in the coming days, Abu Ubaida, spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said.

"We have received information from various resistance factions (Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shiite units in Iraq, the Yemeni Ansar Allah rebel movement - TASS) that they plan to expand the scale of their strikes on enemy positions in the coming days because aggression in Gaza still continues," he said in an interview with the Al Jazeera television channel.

He also said some of the Israeli hostages might have been killed and "the rest are facing a serious danger" and placed the responsibility for the possible death of Israelis who are held hostage in the Gaza Strip on the Israeli government and army.

Hamas earlier reported the death of several hostages who, it said, had been killed in Israeli bombardments of Gaza.

Abu Ubaida also claimed that over the 100 days of the current escalation of the conflict with Israel, Hamas had destroyed some 1,000 Israeli combat vehicles.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 200 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ aggressive actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.