Absolutely, but there are some potential gotchas. First, you correctly noted that the sight is also your gas block. Also, it's probably taper pinned to the barrel, which is where the hitch comes.
If you remove the sight, you need to replace it with a low profile gas block. There may be some that can be pinned, but the odds of the pin holes lining up with the ones on your sight are pretty slim.
Here's what I'd plan if it were me:
Remove the sight (you'll need to knock out the taper pins...search the sight on how to do that).
Buy a clamp on low profile gas block (I'm partial to the YHM one, but there's lots of good ones...some probably better and/or cheaper than that one).
Buy your free float handguard of choice.
At a minimum you'll have to remove the barrel nut to remove the delta ring....may need to replace the barrel nut if your chosen FF handguard has a proprietary nut.
Re-assemble it all with the new handguard and low pro gas block.
Then you're ready to go.
You'll obviously need either an optic or a handguard mounted front sight.