JERUSALEM — Israel’s military chief said on Tuesday that the army was preparing for a potential influx of refugees into the Golan Heights from Syria with the demise of the government of President Bashar al-Assad, which he said was inevitable.

Addressing a closed meeting of the Israeli Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the chief, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, said that Israel was preparing to absorb the refugees in a buffer zone between Syria and the Golan, a strategic area that Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 war, and which remains an area of disputed sovereignty. The plans included defensive measures and humanitarian assistance for those in flight, including thousands from the ruling Alawite sect, the small minority to which Mr. Assad belongs.

“I am not sure all the Alawites will run toward Israel,” General Gantz was quoted as saying, but he said he could not rule out the possibility that some would. He added that Mr. Assad could not continue to rule Syria, but he did not specify how much longer he thought the Assad government would survive.

Israel has tried to keep a low profile and not take sides in the struggle in Syria, a country that is hostile to Israel, but officials here have been increasingly open in their assessment that the Assad government is in dire straits.