JERUSALEM — Israel's security would not be threatened if it gave up the Golan Heights in exchange for peace with Syria, Israel's army chief said in remarks published Friday, departing from the military's traditional view that Israel needs at least part of the plateau as a security buffer.

Lt.-Gen. Moshe Yaalon spoke a day after Vice-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert indicated that Israel will have to evacuate more Jewish settlements in the West Bank than the four mentioned in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan of "unilateral disengagement" from the Palestinians.

As part of the plan, Israel would withdraw from all of the Gaza Strip and the four West Bank settlements by the end of 2005.

Also Friday, an Israeli guard at a West Bank settlement was killed in an ambush. Other guards then killed the Palestinian gunman.

Israel has long argued that giving up the Golan, which it captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed in 1981, could leave northern Israel vulnerable to Syrian attack.

In failed peace talks with Syria, Sharon's moderate predecessor, Ehud Barak, offered to withdraw from virtually all of the heights, but insisted on special security arrangements and some border adjustments.

However, Yaalon suggested that from a military point of view, Israel could afford to withdraw to the pre-1967 lines, a key Syrian demand.

"If you ask me, theoretically, if we can reach an agreement with Syria ... my answer is that from a military standpoint it is possible to reach an agreement by giving up the Golan Heights," Yaalon told the daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot.

"The army is able to defend any border. This is correct for any political decision that is taken in Israel."

The last round of Israeli-Syrian peace talks collapsed in 2000, with Syrians insisting on a complete withdrawal from the Golan, and Israel seeking border adjustments near Israel's Sea of Galilee, at the foot of the plateau.

Last year, Syria made overtures indicating it wanted to resume talks. However, Israel says Syria must first end its support for Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and Palestinian radicals it hosts in Syria itself.

Syria said Friday it will not take seriously Israeli offers to pull out of the Golan Heights unless they are backed by moves on the ground or an open commitment to withdraw.

"We don't give such statements any weight unless they are associated with a serious move (toward peace) and with international guarantees," Syrian government adviser Haj Ali told The Associated Press. "Whoever is willing to make peace should return the land to its owners and withdraw immediately or declare that openly and clearly."

He added that he believed Yaalon's statement was designed to "show Israel was the party seeking peace in order to look good in the upcoming American elections."

Yaalon warned that Syria still represented a threat to Israel's security and that the two counties could again find themselves engaged in a war.

"I can't ignore the scenario in which an escalation on the Lebanese front leads to a confrontation between the two armies," he said.

Yaalon noted that Syria has "missiles that put all of Israel in range and chemical capabilities."

Sharon's aides had no comment on Yaalon's remarks. In the past, Sharon has opposed a complete withdrawal from the Golan.

Meanwhile, Olmert indicated that Israel will leave much of the West Bank after it exits Gaza next year.

Olmert spoke Thursday during a tour of a section of the separation barrier Israel is building along and in the West Bank to keep Palestinian attackers out.

His office quoted him as saying that Israel would have to evacuate more settlements because of international pressure and Israel's own desire to remain a Jewish state.

It was one of the clearest indications yet from an Israeli leader that the disengagement might be only the first phase of a future Israeli pullback from most of the West Bank, to make room for a Palestinian state.

Later, Olmert clarified his remarks by saying further withdrawals would not take place soon. "Certainly it is not on the agenda now," he told Israel TV.