The role of land planning policies in supporting housing affordability: The case of the Gaza Strip

•The study identifies challenges that face housing affordability in Gaza.•A field study based on interviews and a questionnaire has been carried out.•Several land planning policies to promote affordability were questioned.•It concluded that there is a great need to improve housing land supply in Gaza.•Several enabling policies are possible in this regard. The Gaza Strip suffers from a limited amount of land compared to the population growth rate. This imposes several challenges on urban planners in managing housing land in a way that protects housing affordability, especially for the low-income category. In general, housing in the Gaza Strip is unaffordable, for several reasons, including a recent abnormal rise in urban land prices. The study investigated this issue based on a survey of local housing specialists in addition to residents. The study found that to support housing affordability in Gaza, planning solutions that ensure efficient use of urban land in the first place need to be implemented. Furthermore, two parallel actions are required: (i) to implement measures that increase housing land supply and improve security of land tenure; and (ii) to establish a robust and effective housing finance system that fits the socio-economic situation in the Gaza Strip.