JERUSALEM, July 4 -- When the history of the 2026 Iran peace deal is finally written, Gaza will appear on the first page and almost nowhere else. The war that began in that besieged coastal enclave on October 7, 2023, drawing in Hezbollah, triggering the Houthi blockade of the Red Sea, and eventually pulling the United States and Iran into their first direct military confrontation since the revolution, has not been invited to the peace negotiations it made necessary.

As American and Iranian diplomats work through the architecture of a fragile regional settlement, the Palestinian men, women, and children who set those dominoes falling are watching from outside the room.

"We are weak and oppressed, and Israel is doing whatever it wants," ...