From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm Anne Ball reporting.

Palestinians protest Trump's decision. Thousands of Palestinian protesters clashed with Israeli forces in East Jerusalem in the West Bank.

Demonstrators in the Gaza Strip burned U.S. flags and pictures of President Donald Trump in a show of rage Tuesday over the American decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

A top Palestinian official said Vice President Mike Pence would not be welcome in the West Bank when he visits the region later this month.

Israeli forces were bracing for the possibility of even stronger violence on Friday when tens of thousands of Palestinians attend weekly prayers at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque, the city's most sacred Islamic site.

In Gaza, the supreme leader of the Hamas militant group called on Palestinians to launch a new uprising against Israel.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump's decision. "... Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish State of Israel. If you weren't aware of that until yesterday, you are now. But we've been aware of that for 3,000 years."

A charity group warned Wednesday of worsening humanitarian emergency in Democratic Republic of Congo, with nearly two million people this year having fled their homes due to insecurity.

The Norwegian Refugee Council's Ulrika Blom said aid is severely underfunded.

This is VOA news from Washington.

[The United States is appealing for one hundred ] The United Nations is appealing for $187 million to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance to 2.3 million of the most vulnerable Ukrainians who, it says, have reached the limits of their endurance after four years of conflict.

Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from Geneva.

Most people view the ongoing fighting between the Ukrainian government and Russian-backed rebels in Eastern Ukraine as a political crisis. But U.N. Resident Coordinator in Ukraine, Neal Walker, views it as a forgotten humanitarian crisis in the heart of Europe.

While the existing problems directly affect the people in Ukraine, he warns the potential spillover effect into neighboring countries is powerful and worrisome.

"Just as one simple example: increases in the number of cases of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis and HIV, as well as issues of immunization, even an isolated case of polio. All of this in the heart of Europe. Whether these people are immigrating away from the conflict going east, north or west, the [implications] spillover implications are quite severe."

After four years of war, people have reached their limit. Aid workers say they cannot afford to buy food or medicine, to pay for shelter or heating or their children's education.

Lisa Schlein, for VOA news, Geneva.

U.S. Senator Al Franken announced on Thursday he will be resigning in the coming weeks amid a growing firestorm stemming from sexual misconduct allegations - the second Democratic lawmaker to announce a departure this week under a cloud of moral impropriety.

More than two dozen fellow Democratic senators had called on Franken from Minnesota to resign after a news media report quoted a former congressional aide as saying Franken forcefully tried to kiss her in 2006.

And in other news, North Korea says a large joint military drill between South Korea and the United States has made "an outbreak of war" on the Korean peninsula "an established fact."

"The remaining question now is when will the war break out?" a spokesman for North's Foreign Ministry asked Thursday in a statement run by state-run KCNA news agency.

From Washington, I'm Anne Ball.

That's the latest world news from VOA.