The European Union will “start the necessary work” to hit Iran with heavier sanctions after Saturday’s aerial attack on Israel, the bloc’s top diplomat has said.

Speaking following an exceptional virtual meeting of EU foreign ministers on Tuesday, Josep Borrell said he would ask his services to study the possibility of expanding existing EU sanctions against Iranian drone technology.

It would see the current sanctions regime - established in July 2023 to punish Iran for aiding Putin’s war machine with unmanned drones - expanded to include missiles and to also cover Iran’s proxies in the region.

The bloc would also weigh the possibility of listing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation, he said, while stressing that such a move would be difficult since the military branch has not yet been associated with an act of terrorism in any of the EU’s member states.