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The 13 Most Interesting Time Travel Stories in Comics

By rich barrett | apr 25, 2016.

In comics, time travel is as commonplace as the superhero team-up, but often just involves inconsequential time-hopping to have adventures with King Arthur or a far-future descendant. Time travel stories that take care to dance around concepts like causality and temporal paradoxes make most people’s head hurt, but these are the things that make for great stories. Here are 13 comics that did it right.

1. Weird Science Fantasy #25 : "A Sound of Thunder"

Al Williamson/EC Comics

One of the most influential works of time travel fiction in any medium has to be Ray Bradbury’s 1952 short story, A Sound of Thunder . It is the classic depiction of time as a fragile series of interdependent events and would inspire the phrase “The Butterfly Effect."

In the early 1950s, EC Comics took the liberty of adapting Bradbury’s story (initially, without permission or credit to Bradbury) into a seven-page comic illustrated by the great Al Williamson. It’s a gripping tale of a group of hunters who pay to go on the ultimate safari in prehistoric times to hunt a Tyrannosaurus Rex . The trip is perfectly orchestrated so as not to disrupt the ecology, even allowing hunters one shot at a predetermined dinosaur that would have been killed by a falling tree moments later anyway. When one of the hunters freaks out and tramples through the jungle—stepping on a butterfly in the process—they return to their own time to find their world has been drastically altered.

You can read this story in its entirety here.

2. Uncanny X- M en: Days of Future Past

John Byrne/Marvel Comics

The most popular time travel story in comics, “Days of Future Past” from Uncanny X-Men #141-142 introduced us to a dystopian future in which mutants were being hunted by the U.S. government. In a desperate attempt to change their fate, the surviving X-Men telepathically send the mind of the adult Katherine (Kitty) Pryde 30 years back and into her own teenage body so that she can prevent the assassination of a U.S. Senator—the event that would set this unfortunate future into motion.

A future that must be avoided at all costs would become the driving force behind X-Men comics for decades to come. It was an idea writer Chris Claremont and artist John Byrne came up with three years before The Terminator would do the same in Hollywood. Day of Future Past would, of course, inspire a film adaptation of its own in 2014—one year after the dark future of the comic was supposed to have taken place. Around this same time, writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Stuart Immonen turned the dark future trope on its head in All-New X-Men , by plucking the original Silver Age X-Men out of their past and into the present to warn them about all of the messed up events that had been happening to them recently. I t was now clear that the grim turn that X-Men comics had taken in the past 30 years meant that the dark future was already here.

The “many-worlds interpretation” of quantum mechanics—a theory proposed in 1957 by physicist Hugh Everett —states that time travel could be possible if the traveler accesses one of many universes that exist parallel to ours, avoiding any temporal inconsistencies. Marvel Comics operates under this theory as well and have made it clear that “Days” actually takes place in the future of Earth-811. 

3. Meanwhile

Jason Shiga

Jason Shiga’s inventive 2010 choose-your-own-adventure graphic novel Meanwhile is a perfect marriage of subject and format. The reader gets to control the decisions made by a little boy who stumbles into a scientist's laboratory that contains, among other things, a time machine. The pages of the book are marked by tabs and certain panels have color-coded paths that connect to those tabs which may jump you 20 or 30 pages ahead, causing you to read the book in a very nonlinear fashion. Shiga has released Meanwhile in many formats, including interactive apps for iOS devices, including Apple TV.

A former major in the study of abstract math concepts known as "pure mathematics,” Shiga has created a story with a total of 3865 narrative possibilities, encouraging many, many re-reads and a lot of potential for triggering temporal paradoxes and alternate timelines. You may even end up having the boy run into another version of himself. The catch to the time travel in this book is that the machine can only send you as far back as seven minutes—unless you can find clues within the story that will give you the code to unlock its full capabilities. 

4. I Killed Adolf Hitler

Jason/Fantagraphics

The idea of going back in time to kill Adolf Hitler is pretty much its own subgenre of time travel fiction. It even inspired a question asked of Republican presidential candidates this election season. Killing Hitler before he can commit the atrocities of WWII is a popular embodiment of the “Grandfather Paradox,” a concept that comes from the idea that going back in time to kill your grandparents will prevent your own birth, provided the universe and the rules of time allow that to happen. 

Norwegian cartoonist Jason is masterful at every genre he dabbles in, from crime to horror to science fiction. He does so with his trademark anthropomorphic characters and a storytelling approach that is full of literary and cinematic influences. His 2007 graphic novel I Killed Adolf Hitler is inspired by the French New Wave films of the 1960s and at its heart is not about Hitler at all, but the love story between a hitman and his often ignored girlfriend. When the hitman is hired to go back in time to WWII to assassinate Hitler, the hit goes bad and the dictator steals his time machine, leaving the hitman to have to naturally age his way back to the present in order to correct his mistakes (both personally and professionally). 

5. Mystery in Space #114 : "Killing Time"

Tom Yeates/DC Comics

The dangers inherent in trying to kill Hitler played out to terrifying results in a 1980 issue of DC Comics'  Mystery in Space by Gerry Conway and Tom Yeates. In this short story, a time traveler is successful in his assassination mission but is then overcome by a crowd of Nazis who steal his laser rifle, reverse-engineer it, and use the technology to conquer the world.

But, hey, that’s an easy fix, right? All it takes is for a future time traveler to go back and kill the first time traveler before he makes the mistake of killing Hitler. But then a Nazi time traveler comes back and kills him. Then someone else comes back for him, and on and on forever, creating an endless loop of assassins rewriting history.

You can read this story in near entirety here.

6. Ivar , Time w alker #4

Clayton Henry/Valiant Comics

In the mid-1980s, physicist Igor Novikov proposed the “self-consistency principle” that ruled out any form of time travel that could result in a temporal paradox. The laws of physics, which already restrict us from doing things like walking through walls, would similarly prevent a time traveler from altering the past in any way that would create inconsistency.

Fred Van Lente and Clayton Henry perfectly illustrate this theory in their Valiant Comics series Ivar, Timewalker . Ivar Anni-Padda is an immortal who has spent centuries mapping “time arcs” that he uses to jump from one period of history to another. In his 2015 solo series, Ivar rescues a scientist named Neela Sethi, who is about to be murdered before she can invent a new form of time travel. Hopping from era to era, Ivar teaches Neela some of the most important tenets of time travel, particularly that the universe has a way of preventing you from tampering with it. Issue #2 demonstrates this by, you guessed it, showing how you can’t kill Hitler.

The self-consistency principle is demonstrated at its best in issue #4, in which Neela goes off on her own to prevent her father’s death. Over and over, Neela revisits this day from her youth, trying to reroute the course of her own personal history, only to have the universe persistently get in her way. Her constant failures play out in a way that is both comic and tragic.

7. Chronocops!

Dave Gibbons/2000 A.D.

Three years before they would create 1986’s  Watchmen , Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons were honing their comic-creating skills by producing short stories for 2000 A.D. magazine. In one of the magazine's recurring features called Time Twisters , they published a five-page story called Chronocops! that is considered one of Moore’s best early works, and one that would hint at the complex narrative skills he would demonstrate later in his career.

Part satire of the television show Dragnet , part romp through all the classic tropes of time travel fiction, Chronocops! opens with our heroes, Joe Saturday and Ed Thursday, foiling a teen punk's attempt to create the typical grandfather paradox by murdering his great-grandfather. In just a few pages, Moore and Gibbons manage to pack in a dense array of sight gags, Easter eggs, and clever wordplay in a plot that unfolds forwards and backwards in time. Poor Ed gets clocked in the eye for an offense he hasn’t even committed yet and by the end he has to be stopped from marrying his grandmother and becoming his own grandfather.

You can read Chronocops! in its entirety here . It has also been collected in The Complete Alan Moore Future Shocks . 

8. Adventure Comics #247 : “The Legion of Super-Heroes

Al Plastino/DC Comics

One of comics’ classic temporal paradoxes occurred in 1958’s Adventure Comics #247 , when Superboy received a visit from three teens who took him aboard their time sphere and brought him to the 30th century where they inducted him into their club, The Legion of Super-Heroes. Unlike most futures we see in comics, the Legion’s is a utopia that impresses Superboy so much he can’t wait to come back. It also impressed readers; while this issue was intended as a one-off, the Legion would continue to come back again and again, eventually getting their own long-running series.

The Legion was inspired to become superheroes by studying the 20th-century legends of Superman. However, when they go back to the time when Clark Kent is still a teenager, the adventures they have together would inspire Clark to grow into the hero they learned about in their history books. This type of paradox is referred to as a " causal loop ," when a future event is the cause of a past event, which in turn is the cause of the future event.

9. Too Cool To Be Forgotten

Alex Robinson/Top Shelf

Does reliving memories count as time travel? Alex Robinson’s 2008 graphic novel, Too Cool To Be Forgotten , makes a good case for it while also expertly navigating many of the tricky principles of time travel. Forty-something Andy Wicks is put under hypnosis to cure his smoking addiction and finds his consciousness transported (Kitty Pryde-style) back to 1985 and into his teenage body. He quickly realizes that he is there to stop himself from smoking his first cigarette but the question is, what else could be changed by forcing his teenage self to remake decisions he already once made. 

As a Star Trek nerd, Andy is well-versed in the potential mechanics of time travel, which informs how he decides to act in these situations, since it is unclear to him (and the reader) whether this is an hallucination or something more. Robinson presents the concept of reliving high school as both a wonderfully nostalgic opportunity and also the worst nightmare imaginable.

10. All-Star Superman #6 : "Funeral in Smallville"

Frank Quitely/DC Comics

Every issue of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s 12-part

is a masterpiece of high-concept pop comics inspired by the imaginative-but-silly Superman stories of the ‘50s and ‘60s. In issue #6, “Funeral in Smallville”, Morrison and Quitely give their modern, awe-inspiring twist on a popular Superman trope of that era: the visitors from the future. When Ma and Pa Kent take in three migrants looking to help out on the farm, Clark soon figures out there is more to these guys than it seems. In fact they themselves are Supermen; one from the 854th century, one from the 5th dimension, and one known as The Unknown Superman of A.D. 4500. They are here hunting a creature called a Chronovore, which ages everything it touches; they hope to recruit the present day Superman to help them.

There is a great plot twist in this issue that hinges on the fact that this story itself takes place in the past, relative to the rest of the All-Star Superman series. It is a story in which time travel is used not to alter the past, but to revisit it and loved ones who have been lost over the years. 

11. Patience

Dan Clowes/Fantagraphics

The newest book on this list is Daniel Clowes’ Patience , a graphic novel released in March about a young man named Jack whose world is turned upside when his young wife and mother of his unborn child, Patience, is mysteriously murdered. Jack spends the next near-two decades pondering why this has happened until he meets a man who invented a method of time travel (a vaguely explained process involving the injection of some sort of liquid) that gives him a chance to undo the event that ruined his life. Not knowing who the murderer is, Jack’s first step is to go back far enough into Patience’s past to solve the mystery.

Clowes’ take on time travel is inspired by a love of EC Comics and 1950s science fiction, but he uses it as a device to explore themes of nostalgia, regret, and the desire to control fate. Jack is indeed able to affect change in Patience’s past, but is his own tampering going to be the cause of her death anyway?

12. We Can Fix It

Jess Fink/Top Shelf

Jess Fink’s We Can Fix It  is probably the only time travel memoir. Like Alex Robinson’s Too Cool to Be Forgotten , it uses time travel as a way to try and fix the kind of small-scale mistakes most people have made in their lives, but Fink uses her own life and her own mistakes as fodder here. Wearing a futuristic bodysuit and operating a giant walk-in time machine, she visits herself at various ages, initially focused on voyeuristically reliving her early sexual encounters and preventing the more embarrassing ones. She also commits the ultimate act of self-love by making out with her younger self. 

The rules of time travel are not exactly in play in this comic, but it’s a lot of fun and eventually hits on some emotional moments as Jess digs deeper into her own past and asks the question: If you could go back in time, what in your life would you fix?

13. Weird Science #5 : "The Man Who Was Killed in Time!"

Jack Kamen/EC Comics

“The Man Who Was Killed in Time!” was a story by Al Feldstein and Jack Kamen (two of the greats who were producing sci-fi gems for EC Comics back in the early days of comics) that appeared in 1951’s Weird Science #5. This seven-page tale begins with a man running over his own doppelgänger on the road, then running off. He stumbles upon a rocketship that turns out to be a time machine and accidentally transports himself back 14 hours in time, where he proceeds to run into the road and get run over by his own car.

This goofy little story is quaint compared to the other tales on this list, but it is a fun little artifact in that it feels the need to explain itself with a wonderful little illustration at the end. So much of what we take for granted in time travel stories were first done by the people at EC Comics and this little comic is a reminder that it was all new for readers back then.

This story was included in the first volume of the collected Weird Science, but you can also read it in its entirety here .

Pocket-lint

The best images of time travellers from throughout history.

Every now and then an image appears online which people claim shows a time traveller somewhere they shouldn't be. Are they real though?

Every now and then an image appears online which people claim shows a time traveller somewhere they shouldn't be. But are they just cases of people letting their imaginations run wild?

We've rounded up some of the best and most interesting images of time travellers throughout history. Some turned out to be plain fakes or cases of mistaken identities, but others are certainly intriguing.

Which have you seen before?

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The time travelling hipster

This photo was snapped in 1941 at the re-opening ceremony for the South Fork Bridge in British Columbia.

If you look carefully, on the right-hand side you can see an unusually dressed man in what appears to be modern clothing, sporting sunglasses at a time when most were wearing hats and smart jackets.

Many argue this is a time traveller, while others have countered that he's simply a man with a fashion sense ahead of his time. Snopes has shown his clothing is relevant to the time and the area, but it's still great to imagine.

World Cup celebrations

This photo comes from the 1962 World Cup and shows the celebrations as the Brazilian team lifts the trophy.

If you look closely though, you'll see in the bottom centre of the image what looks like someone with a mobile phone snapping a photo of the event.

Could this be a time traveller as well? A bit odd to think someone in the future might have a flip phone , but then they have been making a comeback recently and we know folding phones are about to be big too .

The time travelling sun seeker

This image from 1943 apparently shows British factory workers escaping to the seaside for a break during the midst of wartime. The clothes and beachwear of most people certainly fit the era, but in the centre of a frame appears to be a man dressed like Mr Bean checking his mobile phone.

Or maybe it's a time travel device? Likely a bit of a stretch or a case of overactive internet imagination, but we still enjoy the thought. Maybe there are no public beaches in the future?

Mohawk time traveller

This image from 1905 appears to show the usual happenings of the time - including workers and a banana boat delivering its goods.

However, if you look near the edge of the boat you can spy a man in a white shirt with what appears to be a Mohawk-style haircut. A very unusual haircut for the time and possible proof of a time traveller? Who can say?

Film footage captured during the recording of Charlie Chaplin's 1928 silent film "The Circus" appears to show a lady dressed all in black, wearing a hat and walking around the set talking on her mobile phone.

The footage is a little iffy as is the idea that anyone could be talking on a mobile device in the 1920s, but it's certainly got some suggesting it might be proof time travellers are among us.

The ancient astronaut sculpture

In Salamanca, Spain, there's a cathedral with multiple sculptures carved into its sides. One such sculpture appears to show the likeness of a modern-day (or perhaps futuristic) astronaut.

Considering the cathedral's construction dates back to 1513, people have taken this as proof that time travellers made their way back to that time. However, the truth is the astronaut is merely a modern addition to the artwork carried out by Jerónimo García de Quiñones during renovations in 1992.

Time travelling celebrities

There's an interesting trend of people who closely resemble folks from a bygone era. This could just be a spooky coincidence, but maybe it's proof that time travel is possible.

Perhaps these celebrities are living a double life in another century. Here, Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary Leader Mahir Cayan who was born in 1946 and died in 1972 is shown to bear a striking resemblance to TV star Jimmy Fallon. Is Jimmy Fallon living a double life as a revolutionary communist? Seems hilariously unlikely.

A man and his mobile phone

Some claim that this oil painting by Pieter de Hooch, which was lovingly crafted in 1670 appears to show a young man holding his mobile phone. In an age where such a thing would probably have seen him burnt at the stake, this one is hard to believe.

A description of the image also suggests the young man is a messenger and that's a letter in his hand, not a phone, but it's still nice to let your imagination run wild once in a while. We've often wondered what it would be like to be able to travel back to simpler times to see what life was like for ourselves.

The Adidas trainers mummy

A couple of years ago, an ancient mummy was unearthed by archaeologists digging in Mongolia. At the time, it was suggested the funky-looking footwear she was wearing bore a striking resemblance to Adidas trainers. More evidence of a time traveller visiting ancient times? Investigation of the body dated it around 1,100 years old. That's one heck of a blast through the past.

However, further unearthing showed the woman was more likely to have been a Turkic seamstress which might explain the fresh kicks. She was found with an ancient clutch bag, a mirror, a comb, a knife and more. But no mobile phone.

The time surfer

Another image of an out-of-place individual that people have latched on to as proof that time travel is a reality.

This image dates back over 100 years and shows some smartly dressed Canadians sitting on the side of a hill.

On the left-hand side though, sits a young man in what appears to be a t-shirt and shorts with ruffled hair. He was quickly referred to as the surfing time traveller due to how unusual his attire is. Others have suggested people in the photo appear shocked by his appearance, even pointing out the woman on the right who seems to be gesturing in his direction. Again, this a bit of a stretch as would a time traveller really go through time dressed like that?

A visitor to wartime Reykjavík

This photograph apparently shows a scene from downtown Reykjavík in 1943.

In the heart of wartime, soldiers and sailors can be seen everywhere in the streets among civilians. The man circled though, appears to be on a mobile phone.

We've really got a theme going with these smartphone using time travellers. Who is he calling? And how? And if he is a time traveller, why is he not in Berlin trying to assassinate Hitler?

The dabbing WWII soldier

There's an apparent theme to these time traveller photos that not only includes smartphone users, but also people visiting the second world war.

In this image, a young soldier is seen dabbing, a dance move that became popular around 2014, but certainly wasn't known in wartime.

Of course, it turns out this photo isn't an image of a time traveller, but rather just an image of some actors from 2017's blockbuster Dunkirk . The fact that most of the soldiers are smiling should also be a bit of a giveaway with this one.

Greta Thunberg

In 2019, the internet discovered a photograph from 1898 which showed three children working at a gold mine in Canada's Yukon territory.

The image seemed to show a girl with an incredible likeness to the young climate activist Greta Thunberg. Does this make Thunberg a time traveller who's come through time to save the planet? Weird year for her to choose, but it's a nice idea.

A woman clutching a smartphone (1860)

The painting " The expected one " from 1860, by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller appears to show a woman walking along a rough path, about to be accosted by an adoring young man clutching a pink flower.

A close look though and you'll see she appears to have her attention firmly glued to a modern smartphone. Is this woman actually a time traveller?

Vladimir Putin

A few years back, a number of images surfaced online that seemingly showed Russian President Vladimir Putin snapped over various decades without ageing. Either proof that he's a time traveller or perhaps just immortal?

If true, he's incredibly patriotic, with each image showing him serving his country in one way or another. Though it's more likely to just be a strong likeness.

The AI time traveller

Here's a time traveller with a difference. Stelfie the Time Traveller has been using AI to travel through time. Or at least to give the illusion of doing so.

This creative individual has been using Stable Diffusion to insert the likeness of a modern man into ancient civilisations including Egypt when the pyramids were being constructed, Rome with the centurions and the land of the dinosaurs . It's fun to imagine these as being real, though if you look closely they're clearly AI-generated. As this artificial intelligence improves we'll no doubt get even better images like this. Interestingly even the character taking the selfies isn't real here, but is also made using AI.

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When is the next total solar eclipse in the US after 2024 and what is its path? What to know

The highly anticipated 2024 total solar eclipse will cross North America on Monday , giving millions of sky-gazers the chance to see a rare cosmic event that won't be viewable again for 20 years.

The eclipse's  path of totality  will travel over a portion of northern Mexico before entering the U.S. It then it will cross 13 states  from Texas to Maine, where the spectacle is expected to attract huge crowds.

If you aren't lucky enough to be in the path of totality this time around, you will have another chance - you'll just have to wait until the 2040s.

Here's what we know about the next total solar eclipse to cross over the U.S.

Eclipse playlist: Fans return to Bonnie Tyler's 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' ahead of total solar eclipse

When is the next total solar eclipse visible from the U.S.?

It will be 20 years before there's a chance to  witness a total solar eclipse  in the United States again.

According to NASA, after Monday's total solar  eclipse , the next one viewable from the contiguous U.S. will be on Aug. 23, 2044.

2044 total solar eclipse path of totality

Unfortunately, the 2044 total  solar eclipse  won't have the broad reach across the U.S. as the 2024 eclipse.

The path of totality during the 2044 eclipse will only touch three states, according to the Planetary Society, a nonprofit involved in research, public outreach, and political space advocacy.

The eclipse will begin in Greenland, sweep through Canada and end around sunset in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Pets and the eclipse: Will my pets be safe during the April 2024 solar eclipse? What experts say.

2045 solar eclipse

While the 2044 total eclipse will only touch three states, a 2045 eclipse will have a more robust path across the U.S.

Expected to occur on Saturday, Aug. 12, 2045, this solar eclipse will trace a path of totality over California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.

A partial solar eclipse will also be viewable in 35 other states, according to National Eclipse.com

What is a total solar eclipse?

Any celestial object like a moon or a planet that passes between two other bodies can create  an eclipse  by obscuring the view of objects like the sun.

In the event of a solar eclipse, the moon comes in between the Earth and the sun, blocking its light from reaching a small part of our planet. Partial eclipses, when some part of the sun remains visible, are the most common, making total eclipses a rare sight to behold.

Total eclipses can lead to a period of darkness lasting for several minutes, during which time nocturnal animals stir while confused birds and insects may fall silent, NASA says.

When a solar eclipse reaches totality, people are able to see the sun’s outer atmosphere called the corona, which is usually obscured by the sun's bright surface. This offers scientists an uncommon opportunity  to study the corona .

Totality also offers spectators a chance to gaze upon the spectacular sight with the naked eye, though  proper  safety  glasses  are still required for the rest of the time.

What states are on the 2024 eclipse path of totality?

Mexico's Pacific coast will be the first location in continental North America to experience totality, which is expected to occur at about 11:07 a.m. PDT,  according to NASA .

As the moon's shadow will northeast, totality in the U.S. will begin in Texas at 1:27 p.m. CDT. The path will then cut diagonally across the country, traveling through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont and New Hampshire.

The eclipse's path is expected to end in Maine at 3:35 p.m. EDT before visiting the maritime provinces of Canada, according to estimates.

See  interactive maps of the 2024 path .

Contributing: Doyle Rice, Ramon Padilla & Janet Loehrke, USA TODAY

Advertisement

Map: 4.8-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes New Jersey

By William B. Davis ,  Madison Dong ,  Judson Jones ,  John Keefe ,  Bea Malsky and Lazaro Gamio

Shake intensity

A light, 4.8-magnitude earthquake struck in New Jersey on Friday, according to the United States Geological Survey. The quake was felt across the New York City metropolitan area, and from Philadelphia to Boston.

The temblor happened at 10:23 a.m. Eastern about 4 miles north of Whitehouse Station, N.J., data from the agency shows.

As seismologists review available data, they may revise the earthquake's reported magnitude. Additional information collected about the earthquake may also prompt U.S.G.S. scientists to update the shake-severity map.

Aftershocks in the region

At 5:59 p.m. Eastern on Friday, a light aftershock with a magnitude of 3.8 struck near Gladstone, New Jersey, according to U.S.G.S. (The agency initially gave the quake a preliminary magnitude of 4.0.)

An aftershock is usually a smaller earthquake that follows a larger one in the same general area. Aftershocks are typically minor adjustments along the portion of a fault that slipped at the time of the initial earthquake.

Quakes and aftershocks within 100 miles

Aftershocks can occur days, weeks or even years after the first earthquake. These events can be of equal or larger magnitude to the initial earthquake, and they can continue to affect already damaged locations.

How this quake compares

The U.S.G.S. has logged 188 earthquakes with a magnitude of 2.5 or greater within a 250-mile radius of New York City since 1957. In that timeframe, only seven have had a magnitude at or above 4.5. Today’s quake had the third-highest magnitude in the available data.

Today’s earthquake

Magnitude 4.8

250-mile radius

from New York City

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By Lazaro Gamio

Source: United States Geological Survey | Notes: Shaking categories are based on the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale. When aftershock data is available, the corresponding maps and charts include earthquakes within 100 miles and seven days of the initial quake. All times above are Eastern. Shake data is as of Friday, April 5 at 10:44 a.m. Eastern. Aftershocks data is as of Thursday, April 11 at 5:23 a.m. Eastern.

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Middle East latest: Iran attack on Israel could be 'imminent' - but what might it look like?

Security circles in the US and Israel have likely accepted that the killing of a top Iranian commander in Damascus earlier this month means Iran will have to "retaliate in some form", with reports suggesting an attack could be imminent.

Thursday 11 April 2024 11:06, UK

• Israel-Hamas war

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• Biden says US support for Israel 'ironclad' on Iran
• Alistair Bunkall : Attack from Iran on Israel reported to be imminent
• Three sons of Hamas leader killed in strike | IDF gives details of attack
• Explained: Who is Ismail Haniyeh?
• Watch: Moment he is told his family has been killed
• Alex Crawford report : Yemeni fishermen face threat of Houthi attack - but on Gaza they are firmly behind the militants
• Live reporting by Brad Young

The Biden administration has been very frustrated with Israel over Gaza in recent weeks, but when it comes to Iran, America still has Israel's back, says Middle East correspondent Alistair Bunkall .

"The Americans have been very worried over the last six months that [the conflict] would spill out. Now that really is a possibility if Iran decides to retaliate and how Iran decides to retaliate."

A "like-for-like" retaliation could involve an attack on something connected to the Israeli government or military, said Bunkall.

This may not be in Israel - it could include an Israeli diplomatic mission abroad.

It may be an Iranian proxy like the Houthi or Hezbollah that carries out such an attack, ratter than Iran itself.

This could "be enough not to force Israel to attack Iran directly".

"The one thing I think is not in any doubt is if Iran does decide to retaliate then it would spell a very, very dangerous and risky moment for a region that is already incredibly tense."

More than 100 female soldiers are refusing to serve in surveillance units on the Gaza border, according to reports.

Fears among the conscripts included that female border observers were among those killed or taken hostage by Hamas on 7 October, Israeli news agency Ynet said.

Of the 346 draftees, 116 would not travel to a border protection corps training base.

This is the third group of draftees that have refused the posting, where soldiers monitor cameras and report potential incidents, since the war began.

In January, Ynet reported a group of 50 female soldiers declined to be taken to the base on the grounds that senior commanders had disregarded warnings from observers ahead of the 7 October attacks.

The vast majority of those serving in the border surveillance unit are female soldiers, according to the Times of Israel.

Israeli forces did not consult senior commanders or Benjamin Netanyahu before killing three sons of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, according to Israeli media.

Neither Mr Netanyahu nor defence minister Yoav Gallant were told in advance of the strike, which was coordinated by the Israeli military and the Shin Bet intelligence service, senior Israeli officials told Walla news agency.

They said his sons were targeted as fighters and not because they were relatives of the political leader.

The Israeli military did not comment on reports that four of Mr Haniyeh's grandchildren were killed in the attack.

A 23-year-old man from Leeds has been handed a suspended sentence after publishing pro-Hamas content on X.

Ozain Ibn Yousef, of Mexborough Place, admitted posting images of armed soldiers wearing Hamas headbands and sharing Hamas-led videos in October and November last year, according to the UK's counter-terrorism policing group.

He was given a 16-week custodial sentence, suspended for two years, on Tuesday.

Since 2001, the UK has proscribed Hamas's military wing as a terrorist organisation. This was extended to the whole group in November 2021.

Yousef was charged on 27 February 2024 with publishing images that aroused reasonable suspicion he supported a proscribed organisation.

Alongside the suspended sentence, Mr Yousef was ordered to undertake 100 hours of community service and he will be subject to a 35-day rehabilitation requirement.

Russia's foreign ministry has told citizens they should refrain from travelling to the Middle East, especially to Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. 

The US and its allies believe major missile or drone strikes by Iran or its proxies against military and government targets in Israel are imminent, Bloomberg reported yesterday.

"The tense situation in the Middle East region persists," said the Russian foreign ministry.

"We strongly recommend that Russian citizens refrain from traveling to the region, especially to Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, except in cases of extreme necessity."

Earlier this morning, German airline Lufthansa said it had suspended flights to the Iranian capital, Tehran.

German airline Lufthansa has said it has suspended flights to Tehran.

Israel is currently on alert for an Iranian retaliation following a suspected Israeli airstrike on Iran's embassy in Syria earlier this month. 

An Iranian news agency briefly caused concern when it published a report saying all airspace over Tehran had been closed for military drills. This story was then removed and the agency denied it had issued such a report.

Lufthansa says it has suspended flights to and from Tehran from 6 April until probably today.

"We are constantly monitoring the situation in the Middle East and are in close contact with the authorities. The safety of our guests and crew members is Lufthansa's top priority," a spokesperson for the company told Reuters news agency.

Lufthansa and its subsidiary Austrian Airlines are the only two Western carriers operating international flights into Tehran, which is mostly served by Turkish and Middle Eastern airlines.

We've just been hearing from our Middle East correspondent Alistair Bunkall , who says reports suggest an attack from Iran on Israel is "imminent". 

Security circles in the US and Israel have likely accepted that the killing of a top Iranian commander in Damascus earlier this month means Iran will have to "retaliate in some form". 

Watch: Attack that killed Iranian commander

That killing was more than 10 days ago, but Bunkall says the Iranians "tend to be quite calculated in what they do" and "don't often act rashly". 

Reports from the US which cite intelligence sources say Iran is planning to target military or government infrastructure, rather than Israeli civilians. 

This would be seen by Iran as a "like for like" response, but Bunkall says it's not clear whether the US and Israel would agree. 

The US has been warning Iran "not to push it too far" as there is a "big risk of it spiralling dangerously out of control".

Bunkall says the Iranians have a "network of proxies around the Middle East that they leverage to their own interests" and they may well use these again for their attack.

Until now, Iran has not wanted to be directly involved in the war with Israel. 

The US president has said that Washington will do "all it can" to protect Israel's security in the face of Iranian threats.

Joe Biden said support for Israel was "ironclad" on the issue, despite his frustration with Benjamin Netanyahu over his approach to the war in Gaza.

Antony Blinken has reiterated US support for Israel when it comes to threats from Iran.

The US secretary of state told Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant in a late call yesterday that Washington would stand with Israel against the threats.

The pair also discussed the effort to release hostages from Gaza as talks over a potential ceasefire continue.

The US's Middle East envoy has called on the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and Iraq to step in and urge Iran to lower tensions with Israel.

Tensions between the rival powers have been heightened since the killings of Iranian generals in an attack on the Iranian consulate building in Damascus, Syria, earlier this month.

Tehran blames Israel for the attack. Israel has not commented.

According to a source with knowledge of the situation, White House Middle East czar Brett McGurk asked officials to send a message to Iran that it should de-escalate with Israel, which they did.

Iran said yesterday that its foreign minister had spoken with his Saudi, UAE, Qatari and Iraqi counterparts.

It comes after Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Israel "must be punished and it shall be" for the Damascus blast.

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