Israel: IDF Releases Footage of Hamas Militants' Zikim Beach Raid

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have released video footage of an audacious Hamas raid on Israel's Zikim Beach which culminated in the "neutralising" of the militants from above.

The footage shows the Hamas commandos emerge from the sea onto the beach, north of the Gaza Strip, before attempting an attack an IDF army base.

The footage then cuts to the militants running across the landscape at Zikim before Israeli rocket strikes cut them down.

A second video shows the Israeli Navy firing at the militants from the sea onto the beach before the militants disappear from view in a large plume of smoke.

A senior Israeli security official said that IDF soldiers were dispatched to intercept the Hamas militants after detecting suspicious movements in the area. The Jerusalem Post reports that five Hamas members were killed and one IDF soldier was injured in the exchanges.

"Some terrorists tried to infiltrate Israel earlier this evening. We neutralized them," the IDF tweeted.

The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing, claimed responsibility for the beach assault on their Twitter account, saying that commandos "stormed the Zionist naval base on the shores of the sea."

Conflict has intensified between Israel and Gaza-based militants with dozens of airstrikes carried out against the enclave overnight in retaliation for rockets fired at the Israeli cities of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Gaza's health ministry said that at least 25 Palestinians have been killed, including four women and three children, and 70 injured in the Israeli strikes as part of "Operation Protective Edge".

The Israeli military claimed that 117 rockets had been fired into Israel with the Iron Dome interceptor system shooting down 20. No casualities were reported.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spokesman Mark Regev said that the Israeli army was "now acting to put an end to this" by "dismantling Hamas's military machine".

"We don't want to have some sort of band-aid solution whereby we have a quick fix, a ceasefire and then we only have rockets on Israeli citizens next week," he said.