(ANSA) - ROME, APR 24 - On Monday, EU foreign and defence affairs ministers met in Luxembourg to discuss assistance for Ukraine and further sanctions on Iran in light of both its recent strike on Israel and its support of Russia's war against Ukraine.
    Drones and missiles.
    EU foreign and defence ministers discussed support for Ukraine - following US lawmakers' approval of a nearly 61 billion-dollar aid package - as well as sanctions against Iran for its attack on Israel and its arming of Russia.
    The ministers instructed EU High Representative For Foreign Affairs and Security Josep Borrell to submit concrete proposals for sanctions. These should make it possible to impose further trade restrictions on Iran in order to make it more difficult for the country to build and develop drones and missiles. There are also plans to impose sanctions on individuals, organisations and companies.
    "We have reached a political agreement in order to enlarge and expand the existing drones [sanctions] regime to cover missiles and their potential transfer to Russia," reported Borrell.
    He added that the sanctions will include production and will expand to shipments of drones and missiles not only to Russia, but also to the entire Middle East and the Red Sea region. The ministers also agreed to expand the list of drone components that member states are prohibited from exporting to Iran.
    An initial political agreement in principle for new Iran sanctions had already been reached last week following the recent escalation of the conflict between Israel and Iran. The heads of state and government at the EU Council summit had subsequently declared that "the European Union will take further restrictive measures against Iran, in particular with regard to drones and missiles". Iran has supplied Russia with drones.
    On the margins of the summit, Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob stressed that "the only way to reach peace is for all of us to start to realise our responsibility together. This is the position we will continue to defend, not only in the Middle East, but also with regard to Ukraine and Russia".
    On April 23, the Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian condemned planned sanctions against his country for the large-scale attack on Israel as "unlawful" and "regrettable". Iran had exercised its right to self-defence with the attack, Amir-Abdollahian wrote on X. He called for sanctions against Israel instead.
    Heightened tensions - what happened?.
    The region has been plunged into turmoil since October 7, when Hamas militants launched an attack that led to the deaths of 1,170 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
    Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,012 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, the territory's health ministry said on April 19.
    World leaders, politicians, NGOs and civilians have been calling for a ceasefire for months.
    Lebanon's powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah movement has engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire with Israel since the war started.
    There has also been a surge in violence involving Tehran-aligned groups in Iraq, Yemen and Syria.
    At the end of December, South Africa took Israel to the International Court of Justice, accusing it of violating the Genocide Convention during the ongoing Gaza war. In an interim ruling, the UN court ordered Israel to take protective measures to prevent genocide.
    The spectre of a regional war has only been accentuated in the past week following Iran's first-ever direct attack on Israel on April 13-14 in retaliation for a deadly air strike on Tehran's consulate building in Syria's capital Damascus on April 1, that was widely blamed on Israel. Two generals and five other members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Islamic Republic's ideological army, were among those killed.
    Israel has said Iran launched "over 350 threats, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, rockets and suicide drones". Nearly all the missiles and drones were intercepted by Israel and others, including the United States, Britain and France.
    Amidst these heightened tensions, some countries have set up processes to extract their countries' citizens from Israel and the broader Middle East region if necessary, for example North Macedonia.
    Early on April 19, explosions were reported in central Iran, with senior US officials quoted in the press as saying that Israel was retaliating.
    Israel's ambassador to the United Nations on April 14, Gilad Erdan, urged the Security Council to designate the Revolutionary Guards as a "terrorist" organisation and to "impose all possible sanctions on Iran before it's too late". Iran's envoy to the UN said Tehran had "no choice" but to respond to the April 1 attack.
    (continues) (The content is based on news by agencies participating in the enr, in this case AFP, ANSA, dpa, EFE, MIA, STA, TT). (ANSA).