JERUSALEM — Israel's security chief has warned against a military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip border with Egypt.

Israel Security Agency director Avi Dichter delivered a similar warning four years ago before Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon.

In perhaps the most stark assessment yet, Dichter said a withdrawal from the eight-kilometer Egypt-Gaza border would increase the flow of heavy weapons to the Palestinian Authority and insurgency groups. Dichter said these weapons would include anti-aircraft missiles, Katyusha rockets and other equipment long sought by the Palestinians, Middle East Newsline reported.

In a briefing to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday, Dichter said the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza border would turn the entire area into southern Lebanon.

Dichter pointed to the entry of thousands of missiles and rockets by Iran and Syria to Hizbullah positions along the Lebanese border with Israel over the last four years.

Dichter's warning was said to have marked the harshest assessment by an Israeli military or security chief regarding the ramifications of the government's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank. Dichter, who is resigning his post, did not specifically oppose the plan, but portrayed a stark scenario in which Palestinian forces would pose a threat to Israel similar to that of Hizbullah.

In 2000, Dichter, in a briefing to the same Knesset committee, predicted that Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon would increase the threat to the Jewish state. Weeks before the withdrawal, Dichter said Hizbullah would fill the vacuum left by Israel's military and would seek to recruit operatives from Israeli Arabs and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Officials acknowledge that Dichter's forecast proved to be largely accurate.

[On Wednesday, 12 Israeli soldiers were wounded in a Kassam missile attack on their base in the northern Gaza Strip. Earlier, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian who infiltrated the nearby Erez border terminal complex.]

Palestinian insurgents have intensified missile and mortar attacks against Israeli civilian and military targets over the last two weeks during the campaign for PA elections on Jan. 9. On Wednesday, Hamas gunners fired two Kassam-class short-range missiles into Israel in the fourth straight day of strikes.

In his latest appearance to the Knesset committee, Dichter envisioned heavy Palestinian missile strikes against Israeli communities and critical facilities in wake of a withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Dichter said the military's failure to halt mortar and missile attacks stemmed from a government ban on the deployment of troops in areas used by Palestinian insurgency squads.

"He said that what prevents the Israeli military from being in the areas of [Palestinian mortar and missile] launches is a political decision," Knesset member Aryeh Eldad, an opponent of the withdrawal plan, said.

The Israeli security chief said any withdrawal from the Gaza-Egypt border would constitute "an unreasonable step at this time." The withdrawal plan drafted by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon does not call for an immediate pullback of Israeli troops from the Egypt-Gaza border, but officials said the government does not envision a long-term military presence in the area.

Dichter said Israel's withdrawal from the northern West Bank would also convert the area into a safe haven for Palestinian insurgents. He said the Jenin area would become a launching pad for Palestinian attacks and contain an insurgency infrastructure as large as that in the Gaza Strip.

"If the area [of the northern West Bank] turns into Area A [controlled by the PA] don't be surprised if there are attacks," Dichter was quoted as telling the closed Knesset committee session.

Dichter said the Palestinians have acquired at least five Soviet-origin SA-7 short-range surface-to-air missiles. He said the PA and insurgency groups were trying to smuggle a much larger amount of such missiles from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

Without an Israeli military presence, Dichter said, the influx of weapons from Egypt into the Gaza Strip would turn from a "trickle into a stream." In an assertion that differed with that of the Sharon government, Dichter was quoted as saying that neither Egypt nor the Palestinians would halt the smuggling of weapons and insurgents from the Sinai to the Gaza Strip.

"There could be operatives coming from Lebanon through Sinai into the Gaza Strip and this would convert the area into southern Lebanon," Dichter said.