BEIJING, March 16 (Reuters) - China said on Monday it is in communication with the U.S. about President Donald Trump's visit, after Trump threatened to delay the trip over the Strait of Hormuz, and suggested sanctions previously imposed on Marco Rubio are no longer in effect.

Trump said countries that benefit from shipping through the Strait of Hormuz should help ​secure it, in comments published by the Financial Times on Sunday.

Here are the latest events in the Middle East war:

- Blasts in Tehran -

Explosions hit the Iranian capital on Monday, an AFP journalist reported, hours after Israel said it conducted large-scale overnight strikes.

The blasts were heard in central Tehran as air defence systems were activated, the journalist said. It was not immediately clear what was targeted.

- 'Limited' operations -

The Israeli military said on Monday it had begun what it described as "limited ground operations" against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

BRUSSELS, March 16 (Reuters) - EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Monday she had discussed with the United Nations the idea of freeing up transport of oil and gas through the Strait of Hormuz by replicating a deal that gets grain out of Ukraine during wartime.

Arriving at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, Kallas said she had spoken to U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres about the idea to unblock the strait, currently choked off due to the Iran war.

BRUSSELS, March 16 (Reuters) - All EU informal councils will be held as planned in Cyprus between April and June, Cyprus Energy Minister Michael Damianos said on Monday.

Cyprus, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, moved all March meetings online or postponed them after a drone strike on a British air base amid the Iran crisis earlier this month. Cypriot officials said the attack was carried out by an Iranian‑made Shahed drone, likely launched by Iran‑backed Hezbollah from Lebanon.

DUBAI, March 16 (Reuters) - Oil loading operations have been suspended at the United Arab Emirates port of Fujairah, two sources told Reuters on Monday, after a drone attack sparked a fire in the emirate's petroleum industrial zone.

Fujairah, located on the Gulf of Oman just outside the Strait of Hormuz, is typically a critical exit point for about 1 million barrels per day of the UAE's Murban crude - a volume equivalent to roughly 1% of global demand.

DUBAI, March 16 (Reuters) - The Israeli military said on Monday it had destroyed a plane used by Iran's late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei at Tehran's Mehrabad airport overnight.

It said the aircraft had been used by senior Iranian officials and military figures to travel domestically and internationally and coordinate with allied countries.

Mehrabad is one of Tehran's oldest airports, now serving domestic and regional flights. In addition to being the busiest civilian domestic airport, it is a dual-use facility housing air force assets.

President Donald Trump on Monday demanded that US allies help secure the Strait of Hormuz, but European powers pushed back on a possible mission to reopen the vital waterway shut by Iran in response to US-Israeli attacks.

Trump criticised the lukewarm response to his call for world powers to send warships to escort tankers through the strait, which normally carries a fifth of global crude oil, demanding a more enthusiastic response.

By Max Hunder and Yuliia Dysa

KYIV, March 15 (Reuters) - Ukraine wants money and technology in return for helping Middle Eastern nations that have sought its expertise as they defend against Iranian kamikaze drones, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, after Kyiv sent specialists to the region.

A French jihadist went on trial on Monday in Paris on charges of genocide, the first case in France to tackle atrocities committed against the Yazidi minority during the years-long conflict waged by the Islamic State militant group in the Middle East.

Sabri Essid is presumed to have been killed in 2018, but without proof of his death he is being tried in absentia in Paris on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and complicity in these crimes, committed between 2014 and 2016.

LONDON, March 16 (Reuters) - War in the Middle East is disrupting the flow of critical medicines to the Gulf, imperilling supply routes for cancer drugs and other treatments that require refrigeration and forcing companies to reroute flights and find overland access into the region, industry executives said.

The conflict, sparked by U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran two weeks ago and broadened by Iranian strikes around the region, has knocked out key air transit hubs and closed shipping routes, snarling the movement of goods for many products from medicines to food and oil.