Abbé Pierre, a Roman Catholic priest who crusaded against homelessness in France, is such a celebrated figure in the country that television viewers once voted him the third-greatest French person of all time. Streets, schools and public parks are named for him. He was seen as a steady moral compass for the nation, even after he died at age 94 in 2007.

But over the past two months a much darker image has emerged: that of an accused sexual predator.

Years after his death, Abbé Pierre is facing a sudden profusion of sexual harassment and assault accusations — a stunning fall from grace that has prompted soul-searching at the social justice movement he started; raised uncomfortable questions about who knew about his behavior toward women; and unsettled a country that once hailed him as a symbol of virtue.

“The image of purity, of solidarity, of empathy that he had is crumbling,” said Axelle Brodiez-Dolino, a historian at France’s National Center for Scientific Research who has written a book about Abbé Pierre and Emmaüs, one of the nonprofit organizations that grew out of the movement he founded to address poverty and homelessness.

“That doesn’t change the good that he did in the past,” she added. “But there was a dark side to him that the broader public was completely unaware of.”

Two reports, commissioned by the nonprofits and published in July and this month, have laid bare accusations that Abbé Pierre sexually harassed or assaulted at least two dozen women between the 1950s and the 2000s, mostly in France but sometimes abroad, including in the United States. The accusations have been made by the women themselves, by members of their families, or by witnesses.

One woman said Abbé Pierre groped and kissed her when she was 8 and 9 years old in the mid-1970s. Another said he forced her to watch him masturbate and to perform oral sex on him in 1989. Yet another said Abbé Pierre abused her after she asked for help finding housing in the early 1990s.

The reports do not publicly identify anyone who came forward, but say the accusers were nonprofit employees or volunteers, members of families close to him, staff members at establishments he visited or people he met through his charitable endeavors.

The reports were compiled by Groupe Egaé, a private consulting firm that specializes in preventing sexual and sexist violence. It conducted an investigation at the request of the nonprofits — the Abbé Pierre Foundation, Emmaüs France and Emmaüs International — after a woman came forward privately in 2023, accusing the priest of sexual assault. The organizations say they believe the accusers and expect more to come forward.

“Our movement knows what it owes to Abbé Pierre,” the organizations said in a joint statement. “Now, we must also confront the unacceptable suffering that he forced upon others.”

Abbé Pierre, born Henri Antoine Grouès in 1912 into a wealthy silk-merchant family from Lyon, entered a Capuchin monastery at age 18. He fought with the French Resistance during World War II, served as a chaplain in the French Navy and became a lawmaker.

He campaigned for the homeless, issuing a famous radio call for shelter and supplies during the harsh winter of 1954. That effort inspired a 1956 law that is still in effect in France, making it illegal to evict tenants during the coldest winter months.

After that, not even the occasional brush with controversy dented his national image. He topped a newspaper ranking of France’s most popular personalities 17 times.

Now the nonprofits he left behind are scrambling to distance themselves from a man who was inextricably linked to their work. While he was rarely involved in the day-to-day running of their operations, his scruffy beard, black beret and cape made him an instantly recognizable advocate.

The Abbé Pierre Foundation said that it was going to change its name. Emmaüs France said it would move to remove his name from its logo. An independent commission of experts will investigate how he was able to act unimpeded for more than half a century.

“What we are trying to do through these measures isn’t to forget Abbé Pierre or obfuscate his role,” said Adrien Chaboche, the chief executive of Emmaüs International. “What we are changing is the way that we, as a movement and as associations, present ourselves to the world — and we can’t do that with a figurehead who now embodies such a disgraceful and reprehensible reality.”

They are not the only ones reassessing his legacy. Some cities in France have said they would be stripping his name from public spaces. Nancy, in the east, said it would remove a plaque honoring Abbé Pierre that was affixed only months ago.

How much of his behavior was known to those close to him is unclear. The reports, and investigations in the French news media, suggest that some people close to him knew he had a problematic attitude toward women.

Some victims had alerted nonprofit colleagues or managers of the abuse, the reports said. One charity worker cited said female colleagues were advised not to meet with Abbé Pierre alone. And Martin Hirsch, who was president of Emmaüs France from 2002 to 2007, wrote in a newspaper in July that it was an open secret within the organization that he had once been sent to a psychiatric clinic in Switzerland “because his attitude toward women was problematic.”

Abbé Pierre had publicly confessed later in his life to having sexual relations with women as a priest. But years before the #MeToo movement and broader scrutiny of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in France, the focus appeared to have been more on whether he had broken his vows — and less on whether those relations were consensual.

Pope Francis said on Friday that he did not know when the Vatican had learned about the abuse but added that “certainly after his death, it became known.”

“Abbé Pierre was a man who did a lot of good but was also a sinner,” the pope said on the plane returning from a trip to Southeast Asia and Oceania. “We must speak clearly about these things and not hide them.”

Agnès Desmazières, a historian who recently published a book on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, drew a parallel with the case of Jean Vanier, the Canadian founder of a French charity who was accused after his death of engaging in several abusive sexual relationships.

Mr. Vanier and Abbé Pierre were both charismatic figures admired for their charity work, she said. Each has since been accused of using that reputation to abuse women.

“In a way,” Ms. Desmazières said, “Abbé Pierre’s charitable success protected him.”

Ségolène Le Stradic contributed reporting.

President Biden’s deliberations with Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain about whether to allow Ukraine to attack Russia with long-range Western weapons were fresh evidence that the president remains deeply fearful of setting off a dangerous, wider conflict.

But the decision now facing Mr. Biden after Friday’s closed-door meeting at the White House — whether to sign off on the use of long-range missiles made by Britain and France — could be far more consequential than previous concessions by the president that delivered largely defensive weapons to Ukraine during the past two and a half years.

In remarks at the start of his meeting with Mr. Starmer, the president underscored his support for helping Ukraine defend itself but did not say whether he was willing to do more to allow for long-range strikes deep into Russia.

“We’re going to discuss that now,” the president told reporters.

For his part, the prime minister noted that “the next few weeks and months could be crucial — very, very important that we support Ukraine in this vital war of freedom.”

European officials said earlier in the week that Mr. Biden appeared ready to approve the use of British and French long-range missiles, a move that Mr. Starmer and officials in France have said they want to provide a united front in the conflict with Russia. But Mr. Biden has hesitated to allow Ukraine to use arms provided by the United States in the same way over fears that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia would see it as a major escalation.

On Thursday, Mr. Putin responded to reports that America and its allies were considering such a move by declaring that it would “mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia,” according to a report by the Kremlin.

Mr. Biden and Mr. Starmer offered little insight on Friday into the actions they planned to take. But officials on both sides of the Atlantic said they did not expect any announcement immediately after the White House meeting. In the past, Western countries have begun providing new military equipment to Ukraine without announcing the decision publicly.

“This wasn’t about a particular decision that we’ll obviously pick up again in UNGA in just a few days’ time with a wider group of individuals,” Mr. Starmer told reporters after the meeting, referring to the annual meeting in New York of the United Nations General Assembly at the end of the month.

But he also hinted that he expected a decision about the missiles to come soon.

“I think if you look at both the Ukrainian situation and the Middle East, it is obvious that in the coming weeks and months there are really important potential developments, whatever timetable is going on in other countries,” he said.

John F. Kirby, the national security spokesman at the White House, said Friday that the Biden administration takes Mr. Putin’s threats seriously because he has proved himself capable of “aggression” and “escalation.” But Mr. Kirby added that there had been no change in Mr. Biden’s opposition to letting Ukraine use U.S. missiles to strike deep inside Russia.

“There is no change to our view on the provision of long-range strike capabilities for Ukraine to use inside Russia, and I wouldn’t expect any sort of major announcement in that regard coming out of the discussions, certainly not from our side,” he said.

Mr. Kirby’s comments came just hours before the two leaders met for their first lengthy conversation since Mr. Starmer became prime minister in early July.

The question of whether to let Ukraine use the long-range weapons that can travel 150 to 200 miles has been a rare point of disagreement between British and American officials, who have largely been in lock step on strategy over the past 30 months of fighting.

British officials have argued that Ukraine cannot be expected to fight effectively unless it can attack the military sites that Russia is using to shoot missiles or the airplanes that deliver “glide bombs.” And they believe that Mr. Putin, for all his nuclear threats warning that war between Russia and European forces could be coming, is largely bluffing. Mr. Putin, they say, has shown he does not want to bring NATO directly into the fighting.

Mr. Biden’s view has been far more cautious.

He has hesitated at every major decision point, starting with shipping HIMARS artillery, then through debates on whether to send M1 Abrams tanks, F-16 fighters, and short- and long-range ATACMS, a missile system critical to American preparations to defend both Europe and the Korean Peninsula.

But those decisions have primarily helped Ukraine’s military defend its territory and try to repel the Russian invasion. Over time, his aides say, they have discovered that Mr. Putin was less sensitive to the introduction of new weapons into the battlefield than they had thought. So they have gradually approved more capable, longer-range arms for Ukraine.

The questions of how Mr. Putin would react to the use of American weapons by Ukraine to strike deep inside Russian territory, officials say, could lead to a very different outcome.

“When he starts brandishing the nuclear sword, for instance, yeah, we take that seriously, and we constantly monitor that kind of activity,” Mr. Kirby said. “We have our own calculus for what we decide to provide to Ukraine and what not.”

The American concerns are twofold. The first has been rooted in Mr. Biden’s concern that the war not escalate; time and again he has told members of his staff that their No. 1 priority was to “avoid World War III.”

The second American concern is a practical one: Pentagon officials do not believe Ukraine has enough of the ATACMS, the British Storm Shadow and the French SCALP missiles to make a strategic difference on the battlefield. The reach of the missiles, they note, is well known — and Russia has already moved its most valuable aircraft beyond the range the missiles can fly.

Moreover, the U.S. officials say, they simply cannot supply many more to Ukraine. The Pentagon has warned that it must keep a healthy reserve of weapons in case of an outbreak of fighting in either Europe or Asia. And the missiles are so expensive that they contend Ukraine could get more firepower putting that money into drones.

So in the American telling of events, the decisions being debated by Mr. Biden and Mr. Starmer are more symbolic than substantive.

Looming over this is the American election.

In the debate against Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday, former President Donald J. Trump declined several opportunities to say he was committed to Ukraine’s victory. Instead, he talked of striking a deal, one that Ukraine may be coerced to sign.

While Ms. Harris is likely to continue the outlines of the American strategy, providing more arms and aid to Ukraine as long as Congress keeps the spigot open, Mr. Trump has made clear he is uninterested in continuing to spend heavily. And while Europe has stepped up, it does not have enough of an arsenal to make much of a difference.

Early this summer, Amin Abed, a Palestinian activist who has spoken out publicly about Hamas, twice found bullets on his doorstep in northern Gaza.

Then in July, he said he was attacked by Hamas security operatives, who covered his head and dragged him away before repeatedly striking him with hammers and metal bars.

“At any moment, I can be killed by the Israeli occupation, but I can face the same fate at the hands of those who’ve been ruling us for 17 years,” he said in a phone interview from his hospital bed, referring to Hamas. “They almost killed me, those killers and criminals.”

Mr. Abed, who remains hospitalized, was rescued by bystanders who witnessed the attack, but what happened to him has happened to others throughout Gaza.

The bodies of six Israeli hostages recovered last month provided a visceral reminder of Hamas’s brutality. Each had been shot in the head. Some had other bullet wounds, suggesting they were shot while trying to escape, according to Israeli officials who reviewed the autopsy results.

But Hamas also uses violence to maintain its control over Gaza’s population.

Some Palestinians have been injured or killed as Hamas wages an insurgent style of warfare that risks Palestinian lives to strike the Israeli military from densely populated areas. Others have been attacked or threatened for criticizing the group. Some Palestinians have been shot, accused of looting or hoarding aid.

Much international attention has focused on Israeli hurdles to delivering aid to Palestinians, its military operations that have killed tens of thousands of people and a bombing campaign that has reduced cities to rubble. American officials have repeatedly expressed deep frustration with Israel for those failures, too, as well as for not providing basic security in the territory.

But the reality of the war, according to U.S. officials, is that the Israeli military and Hamas carry out questionable acts nearly every day. Many of the reports reviewed by American intelligence analysts involve Israeli actions: military strikes that kill large numbers of civilians, errant attacks on aid convoys or other deadly incidents. But a large number of reports involve Hamas, both its acts of terrorism against hostages and its abuses of Palestinians.

Vice Adm. Frank Whitworth, the head of the U.S. intelligence agency that analyzes satellite imagery, compared the role of intelligence officials monitoring Gaza to that of an umpire.

“We also have a responsibility to tell the whole story,” he said at a gathering of reporters recently. “We certainly are enabling Israel to protect itself. But we are also calling every ball and strike and balk and foul, and we’re doing so in a very complete way.”

This article is based on interviews with more than three dozen U.S. and Israeli officials, Hamas members and Palestinian residents of Gaza. Many of the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence assessments. Many of the Palestinians spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation.

Since the attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, which killed 1,200 people, Israel’s aim has been to “destroy Hamas.” In practice that means that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to end the group’s hold on power in Gaza. But after 11 months of war, U.S. officials say Hamas’s control has been loosened but not broken.

Palestinians are quick to excoriate Israel for the deaths and destruction in Gaza. But some Palestinians said in interviews that Hamas has put Gazans in Israel’s cross hairs by launching attacks from neighborhoods, running tunnels under apartment buildings and hiding hostages in city centers.

And Hamas is still able to inspire fear among the people it rules, despite the chaos that has taken hold across the territory.

“There’s no international law that justifies Israel killing civilians,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science who fled Gaza early in the war. “But Hamas has acted recklessly.”

Putting Civilians in the Line of Fire

Hamas’s practice of operating from civilian areas of Gaza has drawn sharp criticism from Palestinians.

“Those launching rockets and firing bullets from civilian areas don’t care about civilians,” said Abu Shaker, whose family has been repeatedly displaced. He asked to be identified by his nickname. “If you want to fight Israel, you should go do that. But why are you coming to hide among the civilians?”

At the beginning of the war, he said, militants fired rockets at Israel from the busy towns of Deir al Balah and Nuseirat in central Gaza. Residents hurried indoors in anticipation of retaliatory Israeli strikes.

It is notoriously difficult to assess public opinion in Gaza. Mobile phone networks have been spotty. Polling is extremely complicated. Interviews are challenging to conduct, especially during a war. And speaking out against Hamas is risky.

Still, Palestinians interviewed by The New York Times expressed frustration with Hamas, particularly over its practice of embedding in civilian areas. The Palestinians interviewed said that while Israel bore enormous responsibility for the suffering the war has brought upon them, Hamas did too.

Hamas built access points to its extensive tunnel network inside homes. An aerial photo recovered by the Israeli military from a Hamas commander’s post shows three dozen hidden tunnel entrances marked with color-coded dots and arrows in one crowded neighborhood.

To some Palestinians, an Israeli airstrike on July 13 targeting the senior military commander Muhammad Deif and another Hamas military leader is an example of the perils civilians face.

Israeli officials say that Mr. Deif had entered a villa in a designated humanitarian zone to meet with a Hamas commander who was hiding there. Some 70 Palestinians were killed in the assault, including many women and children, according to the Gazan health ministry. Israel later declared Mr. Deif dead, but Hamas has disputed the claim.

Munir al-Jaghoub, an official in the Fatah party in the West Bank, blasted Israel for the deaths. But he also condemned Hamas.

“Any soldier who wants to bear arms is required to protect civilians, not to hide among civilians,” he said in a televised interview.

Hamas officials rejected criticisms that the group put civilians in harm’s way and suggestions that it should keep its fighters away from towns and cities.

“There’s no such thing as being outside residential areas in Gaza,” said Husam Badran, a senior Hamas official. “These pretexts, primarily made by the Israeli occupation army, are meaningless.”

‘Shut Him Up’

Palestinians who protest face the threat of immediate retaliation.

On Saturday, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate blasted the “policy of intimidation and threat” facing some journalists in Gaza after a group of gunmen stormed the home of Ehab Fasfous, a reporter and social media activist. While the syndicate did not explicitly name Hamas, it left little doubt that it was behind the raid on Mr. Fasfous’s home in the southern city of Khan Younis.

In its statement, the organization said it viewed the raid with “great severity” and that journalists and their families should be protected.

“Journalists in Gaza are being constantly killed by Israel,” said Tahseen al-Astal, the deputy head of the group. “When internal Palestinian parties go after them, too, their work becomes impossible.”

Mr. Fasfous, a well-known critic of Hamas, has long been targeted by the group’s general security service, a secret police force in Gaza that has conducted surveillance on everyday Palestinians, according to Hamas documents obtained by The Times.

Weeks before the start of the war, the unit recommended taking action to prevent Mr. Fasfous from reporting as a journalist. “Defame him,” a file from August 2023 read, calling him one of Hamas’s “major haters.”

“We advise that closing in on him is necessary because he’s a negative person who is full of hatred, and only brings forth the Strip’s shortcomings,” the file said.

In an interview with The Times in May, Mr. Fasfous said Hamas held critics in contempt. “If you’re not with them, you become an atheist, an infidel and a sinner,” he added.

Ismail Thawabteh, the director general of the Hamas-run government media office, attempted to distance Hamas from the threats and violence waged against Mr. Fasfous and Mr. Abed. Without citing any evidence, he suggested that the two men were victims of personal disputes or street crime that he said had become increasingly prevalent since the start of the war.

The Interior Ministry, Mr. Thawabteh said, has opened investigations into both incidents.

Hamas has paid particularly close attention to journalists and activists who criticize its rule on social networks and to Western news media, according to U.S. officials and Palestinian analysts. But other Palestinians have also been threatened and intimidated.

Earlier this year, Alaa al-Haddad, 28, an activist from Gaza City, began criticizing Hamas as he watched the news with strangers at a shelter in Rafah. Soon after, Mr. Haddad said that his uncle was approached by a member of Hamas. “Shut him up,” Mr. Haddad said the man told his uncle.

“This is the story of the Palestinian people in Gaza,” said Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Palestinian American who is a fellow with the Atlantic Council. “The powerlessness of being stuck between a ferocious Israeli war machine and a nefarious Islamist group that operates among the civilians.”

While Hamas officials minimize criticisms of their conduct, they broadly argue that the suffering of the Palestinian people is the cost for fighting against the Israeli occupation of Gaza.

Hamas recognizes that “freedom doesn’t come for free,” said Salah al-Din al-Awawdeh, a member of the group who spent time in prison with its current leader, Yahya Sinwar.

“There is no liberation movement that has freed its people without paying a big price in terms of civilians,” he said.

But some U.S. and Israeli officials said their intelligence assessments indicate that Mr. Sinwar is more interested in inflicting pain on Israel than uplifting the Palestinian people.

“He’s not calculating the impact on human beings or property,” said Ted Singer, a recently retired senior C.I.A. official who worked extensively in the Middle East. “He is calculating on bringing the Israelis down a notch and freeing Palestinian prisoners.”

‘It Was Horrific’

Hamas also hides hostages among Palestinian civilians, with devastating consequences.

In early June, Israel planned a mission to rescue four of the dozens of living hostages who remain in Gaza. But civilians in the densely populated Nuseirat area proved a complicating factor.

The Israelis sent in rescue vehicles on June 8, and when one was damaged, Hamas militants moved in on it. A firefight broke out, and commandos called in the Israeli air force, which began striking the neighborhood.

The hostages were ultimately rescued. But more than 270 Palestinians were killed, according to the Gazan health ministry, though it has proved impossible to determine with certainty how many were Hamas fighters and how many were innocent bystanders.

Many Palestinians are angry at Israel for conducting the raid. But others said they knew that Israel would try to rescue its people, no matter the toll.

“I’m totally against mixing prisoners and civilians,” said Kareem, a lawyer who spoke on the condition that only his first name be used to avoid retribution from the Hamas authorities. “We saw what the operation resulted in. It was horrific. A very high price.”

According to Israeli and American officials, intelligence intercepts show that Hamas leaders have ordered their fighters to kill hostages if it appeared that Israeli troops were moving in and could potentially rescue them. Earlier this month, Abu Obeida, the spokesman of Hamas’s military wing, suggested that militants had been given such orders.

Israeli officials said they believed that was what happened last month. On Aug. 29 or 30, according to an Israeli intelligence assessment, Hamas militants holding six hostages in the tunnels below the Tel Sultan area of Gaza detected an Israeli military patrol above them. Israeli military officials said they believed that Hamas scouts or a camera revealed the Israeli soldiers’ movements.

Acting on the standing orders not to allow hostages to be liberated, the militants executed their captives and fled the tunnel, according to Israeli officials. The soldiers above ground continued their patrol, not knowing they had come close to the hostages.

The Israeli military said that the entrance to the tunnel was located inside a child’s bedroom.

“A military force doesn’t do” what Hamas did, said Jonathan R. Cohen, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt. “They’re a terrorist organization with a military structure. That’s a terrifying thing.”

A Hold on Power

To break Hamas’s control of Gaza, Israeli officials say they need to destroy not just its military power but also its ability to function as a government. Critics of Israel have questioned that strategy, which they say hurts ordinary Palestinians.

But nearly a year into the war, the civilian government still functions.

Mr. Thawabteh, the director general of the Hamas-run government media office, said the government still employs thousands of people, helps distribute aid and organizes Friday prayers. Security services continue to try to enforce the law, he added.

Government-run emergency committees help secure aid and maintain order, Mr. Thawabteh said.

“The government in Gaza is living through a time of challenges,” he said. “But it’s still in place carrying out its duties every day.”

Hamas is not the only group active in Gaza. Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a Hamas ally that participated in the Oct. 7 terror attacks, remains strong. Armed gangs and neighborhood committees operate throughout the territory, with some also making threats and carrying out revenge attacks.

American officials say the groups operate with the implicit blessing of Hamas, though its precise level of oversight and control of them varies from group to group.

But Mr. Sinwar is the unchallenged leader of Gaza. While his day-to-day control of the government is attenuated, as he tries to avoid being captured or killed by Israel, he still sets the broad goals and policies for Gaza, according to officials briefed on the intelligence.

Aid agencies trying to deliver humanitarian relief to Gaza acknowledge Hamas’s continued control. Aid convoys must coordinate their efforts with local Hamas leaders, or risk the aid not getting through.

Efforts to have Gazans who are aligned with the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority help secure aid convoys have fallen apart. American officials say Hamas hostility and threats on those convoys shut down the effort.

Looting has afflicted several Gazan cities after Israeli forces pulled out. Some of the looters may have been hungry people trying to feed their families. Others may have had more base motivations.

Israeli and American officials say Hamas has tried to stop the looting, but often with brutal tactics.

In some instances, according to U.S. officials, people accused of looting have been shot in the leg. In one incident, a group of Hamas members beat people accused of stealing aid and spray-painted the word “thief” on the back of one of them, according to the Israeli military.

To some Palestinians, the rough justice has added to a climate of fear.

Mr. Abed, 35, the Palestinian critic of Hamas who was beaten in July, was attacked after writing on social media and speaking to news media, including The New York Times, and believes that Hamas’s leaders want to make an example out of him.

On Wednesday, Mr. Abed left Gaza for the first time in more than two decades, one of dozens of wounded and ill people whom Israel permitted to travel to the United Arab Emirates for treatment.

“I feel terrible that I’ve left our family and people behind, but at the same time, I feel safe for the first time in 17 years,” he said in a voice message from his hospital bed in Abu Dhabi. “There’s no one that wants to kill, arrest or follow me.”

Aaron Boxerman and Abu Bakr Bashir contributed reporting.

Three American citizens were among 37 people sentenced to death on Friday for their role in a coup attempt in the Democratic Republic of Congo four months ago.

In an attempted coup on May 19, which the military of the central African nation said it had foiled, three people were killed in a gunfight near the presidential palace and armed men briefly occupied an office of the presidency.

The coup leader, Christian Malanga, an opponent of the Congolese government who ran a minor opposition party, streamed the attack live before security forces killed him. His son, Marcel Malanga, was among those who received the death penalty, along with his high school friend Tyler Thompson. Both are American citizens in their 20s.

In July, Marcel Malanga told the court he was not involved in planning the coup and that he and Mr. Thompson had been forced to join in while visiting his father.

“Dad had threatened to kill us if we did not follow his orders,” Reuters quoted him as saying.

The 37 people were convicted of criminal conspiracy, terrorism and other charges, while 14 others were acquitted. The third American, Benjamin Zalman-Polun, was a business associate of Christian Malanga.

Among those convicted was Jean-Jacques Wondo, a prominent researcher of political and security issues in Africa’s Great Lakes region and a dual citizen of the D.R.C. and Belgium.

Military officers have seized power in several African nations in the last four years, riding waves of public dissatisfaction with elected leaders, who are often seen as corrupt, self-interested and anti-democratic.

Christian Malanga called his movement New Zaïre. The Democratic Republic of Congo was rechristened Zaïre by its longtime president, Mobutu Sese Seko, who seized power in a 1965 coup, before the country reverted to its previous name in 1997.

In a video filmed in the president’s offices before he was killed, Mr. Malanga accused the president, Félix Tshisekedi, of “doing stupid things.” Dressed in military fatigues, boots and, in at least one case, flip-flops, a few dozen of his men waved his flag, featuring a hand carrying a torch.

The verdict was read out at the military prison where the defendants were being held on the outskirts of Kinshasa, and it was broadcast on Congolese television. Dressed in blue-and-yellow prison uniforms, they listened to their fate from the pen erected for them in the prison yard. The Americans sat together on blue plastic chairs, occasionally whispering to each other.

Although the D.R.C. has never abolished the death penalty, there was a moratorium on executions for over two decades. But in March, the government announced it would start executing people again, a decision that human rights organizations condemned.

President Tshisekedi has himself called the country’s justice system “sick.”

Asked his advice to Catholic voters in the coming U.S. presidential election, Pope Francis said they must choose the “lesser of two evils” because “both are against life” — Kamala Harris for her support for abortion rights, and Donald Trump for closing the door to immigrants.

“Sending migrants away, not allowing them to grow, not letting them have life is something wrong; it is cruelty,” Francis said in a news conference on the plane as he returned to Rome after his long trip to Southeast Asia and Oceania. “Sending a child away from the womb of the mother is murder because there is life. And we must speak clearly about these things.”

The remarks came as Francis, 87, concluded a grueling 11-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region that included stops in Jakarta, East Timor and Singapore, showcasing his commitment to reach out to the faithful in what he calls “the peripheries” and to build a less Eurocentric church that looks to Asia.

His stance on the American presidential race reflects the divide among Catholic voters in the United States, who in previous elections have been just as split between the parties as the larger electorate. The American bishops’ conference similarly advises Catholics to take the array of church teaching into account in the voting booth and does not endorse candidates — although some bishops weigh in more explicitly.

Francis described the rejection of migrants as a “grave sin” and “cruelty,” and abortion as “murder.” He said that both “are against life” and clearly wrong.

But when asked whether it would be morally admissible to vote for someone who favored the right to abortion, he responded: “One must vote. And one must choose the lesser evil. Which is the lesser evil? That lady or that gentleman? I don’t know. Each person must think and decide according to his or her own conscience.”

Francis did not mention either candidate by name.

Francis was also asked about the situation in Gaza, where more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in 11 months of the war that began after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7 last year.

“When you see the bodies of children killed, when you hear that schools are bombed because guerrillas might be inside, it’s horrifying. It’s horrible, it’s horrible,” Francis said.

“It’s sometimes said that this is a defensive war, but sometimes I believe that it’s a war, too much, too much,” the pope said, his words faltering. “I apologize for saying this, but I don’t see steps being taken toward peace.”

Francis added that he spoke every day to a parish in Gaza where both Christians and Muslims attend its schools. “They tell me horrible stories, difficult things,” he said, adding that the Holy See had been working to help mediate a cease-fire.

Francis’s views on abortion and migration were nothing new. But they became particularly relevant in the context of the coming elections in the United States, in which both are central issues.

“Both are against life: the one that throws out migrants and the one that kills children,” Francis said.

The Roman Catholic Church considers abortion a grave sin, and Francis has often referred to abortion as murder, even in the case of a fetus that is ill or has pathological disorders. In 2018, he compared abortion to contracting “a hit man to solve a problem,” and in his most recent papal document, issued this year, he firmly restated the church’s rejection of abortion, the death penalty and euthanasia.

At the same time, he has made the plight of migrants a centerpiece of his papacy, urging compassion and charity for the millions who have been forced to leave their homelands because of war, poverty or famine.

His first trip as pope, in 2013, was to Lampedusa, the island off Italy that in recent decades has become the entry point to Europe for countless migrants crossing the Mediterranean. There, he denounced the “globalization of indifference” to their plight.

He has since relentlessly denounced human trafficking and called for safe migration routes, and has said repeatedly that rejecting migrants is a grave sin. Last month, speaking to his last general audience before the trip to Asia and the Pacific, Francis told those present in St. Peter’s Square, “It needs to be said clearly: There are those who systematically work by all means to drive away migrants, and this, when done knowingly and deliberately, is a grave sin.”

Francis has put caring for migrants and opposing abortion on equal footing, saying in a 2018 document that both were holy pursuits.

It is also not the first time Francis inserted himself into a United States presidential race. In 2016, during the Republican primary, Pope Francis suggested that Mr. Trump was “not Christian” because of his campaign promises to deport more immigrants and to force Mexico to pay for a wall along the border.

“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” Francis said at the time, returning to Rome from Mexico on the papal plane.

On another in-flight news conference, he weighed in on whether communion should be given to politicians like President Biden who support abortion rights, saying that he had never denied communion to anyone.

On Friday’s flight, Francis also talked about the Vatican’s relationship to China. He has sought to improve relations with the country but still has not visited it, despite reaching a groundbreaking and sharply criticized deal on the appointment of bishops that is set to be renewed in October. Francis has continued his outreach to Asia, completing on Friday his tour of about a dozen countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

“China is a promise and a hope for the church,” he said on Friday, adding that he was happy about the discussions they were having with the country. “I would love to visit China.”

One of the largest counterterrorism operations against the Islamic State in Iraq in recent years killed four top insurgent leaders last month, the U.S. military said on Friday, dealing the group a major blow at a time when its attacks in Iraq and Syria are on the rise.

The raid by American and Iraqi commandos against several Islamic State hide-outs in western Iraq on Aug. 29 killed at least 14 insurgents and devastated the group’s top leadership in the country, according to a statement from the Pentagon’s Central Command and U.S. counterterrorism officials.

Among the dead the military identified was Ahmad Hamid al-Ithawi, the top ISIS commander in Iraq and one of the group’s most well-established veterans. Two senior commanders for ISIS operations in western Iraq were also killed, the military’s statement said.

Another main target killed was Abu Ali al-Tunisi, a Tunisian national who was the subject of a $5 million reward from the U.S. government, the military revealed on Friday. Mr. al-Tunisi has been ISIS’s most significant designer, manufacturer and teacher in explosives — including improvised devices, suicide vests and car bombs, counterterrorism officials said.

“The raid appears to have effectively killed off ISIS’s entire command in Anbar,” Charles Lister, the director of the Middle East Institute’s Syria and counterterrorism programs, wrote in a Substack newsletter, “Syria Weekly,” on Friday. Anbar is a vast province in western Iraq that has been a locus for violent Sunni extremists for years.

Central Command and the Iraqi military offered scant details when they announced the raid on Aug. 30, even though it was one of the most sweeping counterterrorism missions in the country in years.

Seven U.S. soldiers were injured as more than 200 troops from both countries — including elite Army Rangers backing up the main assault force — hunted down fighters in bunkers over miles of remote terrain, U.S. and Iraqi officials said, adding that the size, scope and focus of the mission underscored the terrorist organization’s resurgence in recent months.

The joint operation in Anbar province came even as Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, and Iraqi military commanders say they can keep ISIS under control without U.S.-led assistance. Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that would wind down the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq over the next two years. There are about 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq and 900 in neighboring Syria.

Central Command, however, announced in July that the number of attacks claimed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria was on track to double this year from last year. ISIS asserted responsibility for 153 attacks in the two countries in the first six months of 2024, the command said, but the military has repeatedly refused to provide a country-by-country breakdown of the figures.

“With ISIS resurgent next door in Syria and U.S. troops now scheduled to depart Iraq by the end of 2026, degrading ISIS’s leadership and capabilities in Iraq is more vital than ever,” Mr. Lister wrote.

The United States and other allied forces have helped Iraqi forces carry out more than 250 counterterrorism missions since October, according to Pentagon officials.

But this operation was unusual in the heavy presence of American commandos leading the initial raid. More than 100 U.S. Special Operations forces and other troops joined a smaller number of Iraqi soldiers in the main helicopter-borne, predawn assault.

Central Command in its statement said the raids “served to disrupt and degrade ISIS’s ability to plan, organize and conduct attacks against Iraqi civilians, as well as U.S. citizens, allies and partners throughout the region and beyond.”

Besides killing the ISIS insurgents, the American and Iraqi commandos scooped up a trove of cellphones, computers and other sources of information from the raids, military officials said on Friday. U.S. analysts will first quickly assess the information to determine if it holds clues that commandos could use to carry out immediate attacks against other high-priority targets.

Counterterrorism analysts will then spend months poring over the data to learn more about the group’s leaders, finances, operations and planning.

Brazil’s Supreme Court had a problem: X, the social network owned by Elon Musk, was not paying fines and had already been blocked across the nation.

So the court looked elsewhere: It made a different Musk-controlled company help settle the bill.

On Friday, Brazil’s Supreme Court said two banks in Brazil had complied with its orders to deduct $3.3 million in fines from the Brazilian accounts of X and Starlink, two companies controlled by Mr. Musk.

One of the court’s justices, Alexandre de Moraes, had issued the fines and blocked X across Brazil last month because Mr. Musk had defied his orders to block certain accounts on the social network and then closed the company’s office in Brazil to avoid any consequences.

In an effort to collect on the fines against X, Justice Moraes froze the local assets of Starlink, a satellite-internet service controlled by Mr. Musk that has surged in popularity in Brazil.

On Friday, the court said the banks had transferred to the Brazilian government $1.3 million from X’s local accounts and $2 million from Starlink’s. The court said the companies’ assets were no longer frozen in Brazil.

The development signaled an end to one of the more unusual aspects of the monthslong dispute between Justice Moraes and Mr. Musk. The two have battled over what can be said on X, with Justice Moraes arguing that certain accounts were illegally attacking Brazilian institutions and Mr. Musk responding that the judge was illegally censoring voices. The social network remains blocked in Brazil.

Justice Moraes determined that Starlink could be responsible for X’s fines because they were from the same “de facto economic group.” Some legal experts in Brazil questioned that interpretation, but the court said the two companies had missed the deadline to appeal.

Starlink had asked the court to unfreeze its assets, but another Brazilian Supreme Court justice quickly rejected the request.

Mr. Musk called the move to freeze Starlink’s assets “absolutely illegal,” noting that Starlink is owned by the private space company SpaceX. Mr. Musk said he owns 40 percent of SpaceX. Company filings show he also controls a majority of voting shares.

Starlink had previously supported X in its dispute. After Justice Moraes ordered the site to be blocked, Starlink told regulators it would not comply and would allow its 250,000 users in Brazil to keep using X. But two days later, faced with potentially losing its license in the country, Starlink agreed to block the site.