Israeli Gen. Amos Gilad, head of the Defense Ministry's Diplomatic-Security Bureau, warned on Tuesday that war with Syria could be just around the corner.

Speaking at the ninth annual Herzliya Conference at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Gilad said that Israel is "on a collision course with Syria," and urged strong efforts to forge a peace agreement with the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Gilad said that Israel and Syria had been closer to all-out war in 2006 than most realize, noting that nearly all of the missiles fired by Hizballah at northern Israel during the Second Lebanon War had been provided by Damascus.

He went on to caution that in the next round of fighting along Israel's northern border, Hizballah and perhaps even Syrian forces are likely to use much longer-range missiles capable of hitting Israel's densely-populated Tel Aviv area.

Were Syria to acquire nuclear weapons, the situation would quickly spiral out of control, Gilad concluded.