Israel could remove dozens of Jewish settlements from the West Bank, Vice Premier Shimon Peres told Channel Two television on Saturday, but warned that "not all the settlements, and I'm not even sure most of the settlements," would be evacuated.

The number of settlements evacuated could be in the dozens, he said. "I think that a serious effort will be made to do that which we undertook to do, which is removing settlements."

Israel quit the Gaza Strip unilaterally in 2005 but shelved plans for West Bank pullouts after last year's Lebanon war. Many Israelis oppose removals for fear of bolstering Hamas, the governing Palestinian faction.

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Asked if the Palestinian government could hold talks with Israel on the settlement evacuations and thus affect their scale and pace, Peres said: "If Hamas is willing to negotiate, recognize Israel and achieve peace, then definitely, yes.

"We will implement [the pullout] according to actions" by the Palestinian government, said Peres, senior deputy to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Olmert's ability to carry out a major West Bank withdrawal over the objections of pro-settler Israelis is in doubt, given his plummeting popularity since the July-August war with Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas.

But Hamas leaders have offered a long-term truce with Israel in return for a viable Palestinian state alongside it.

The Islamist group last month signed a power-sharing deal with the more moderate Fatah faction in the hope of winning Western approval.

The Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators, the United Nations, the United States, Russia and the European Union, has said it awaits word on the diplomatic platform of the planned Hamas-Fatah coalition government, and for now is maintaining a Western aid embargo imposed on the Palestinians after Hamas took power.