Gaza City (CNN) -- It hits you just a few steps past the Hamas checkpoint, at the sounds and sight of a mule-pulled cart passing by: To enter Gaza is to step back in time. Also front and center: the question of whether hate will ever give way to peace. In the city square, there's a giant billboard celebrating the Hamas militant wing that carries out attacks in Israel. Nearby, posters paying tribute to men Hamas calls "martyrs" but who by most any other definition would be called terrorists. Obama: 'Peace is possible,' but see the world as Palestinians do
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Gaza, a Palestinian territory, is controlled by Hamas
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The West Bank, another Palestinian territory, is controlled by the Fatah movement
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Ramallah in the West Bank is hardly boomtown, but it is a galaxy apart from Gaza
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President Obama paid tribute Thursday to the West Bank's stronger economy
But it is also evidence of the price @placeholder pays for Israel's anger at Hamas.
To pass through is to see mostly abandoned or shuttered buildings in a bleak no-man's land under the watchful gaze of @placeholder surveillance balloons.