Israel is to go ahead with an emotionally charged deal to swap a notorious Lebanese prisoner for the bodies of two soldiers seized as hostages in 2006.

The deal with the Lebanese Hezbollah militant group, which was overwhelmingly agreed by 22-3 the Israeli Cabinet today after a six hour debate, has provoked public controversy over whether Israel was giving up too much, or carrying out its highest commitment to its soldiers to do everything possible to bring them home.

Lebanese officials said Hezbollah was eager to see the deal go through, and would press for the exchange to take place by the end of the week.

Hezbollah militants captured Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in a July 2006 cross-border raid into Israel that led to a month-long war.

In return for their bodies, the Cabinet agreed to release Samir Kantar, a Lebanese guerrilla imprisoned for nearly 30 years for an attack etched in the Israeli psyche as one of the cruellest in the nation’s history.

Hezbollah had offered no sign that Goldwasser and Regev were alive and the Red Cross was never allowed to see them. But ahead of the vote, Ehud Olmert said for the first time that Israel has concluded the two soldiers were dead, killed during the raid or shortly after.

“We know what happened to them,” the Israeli Prime Minister told the Cabinet, according to comments released by his office. “As far as we know, the soldiers Regev and Goldwasser are not alive.”

In exchange for the soldiers’ bodies, the Cabinet was asked to agree to give up Kantar, who is serving multiple life terms in a 1979 infiltration attack on a northern Israeli town. Witnesses said Kantar, then 16, shot Danny Haran in front of his four-year-old daughter, then smashed her skull against a rock with his rifle butt, killing her, too. Two Israeli policemen also were killed. Kantar denies killing the four-year-old.

During the attack, Danny Haran’s wife accidentally smothered their two-year-old daughter in a frantic attempt to keep her quiet so that Kantar and his comrades wouldn’t find them in their apartment.

In addition to Regev and Goldwasser's bodies, Israel will receive a report on a missing Israeli airman whose plane crashed in Lebanon in 1986, and body parts of other Israeli soldiers.

In addition to Kantar, Lebanon will receive four imprisoned Hezbollah fighters, a dozen bodies, most of them Hezbollah militants, and an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners. Hezbollah had demanded the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Israel’s military chief of staff, the head of the Mossad intelligence agency, the commander of the Shin Bet security service and other defence officials briefed ministers before the vote. The Mossad and Shin Bet chiefs opposed the deal, while military chief Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi supported it, officials said.

Critics have argued that swapping bodies for Kantar would offer militant groups an even greater incentive to capture soldiers and less of a reason to keep captives alive.

In addition to Regev and Goldwasser, Israel is trying to win back a third soldier, Gilad Schalit, captured by Palestinian militants in a June 2006 cross-border raid from the Gaza Strip. Unlike his comrades in Lebanon, the soldier has sent letters and an audio tape to his parents and is believed to be alive, though he has not been seen since his capture and the Red Cross has not been permitted to visit him.

The proposed deal with Hezbollah would require the approval of the militant group’s secretive, decision-making Shura Council. Germany has been trying to mediate a prisoner exchange since Israel’s war with Lebanon ended in August 2006.

Israeli media said the soldiers’ bodies would be sent to Germany and identified by Israel before Kantar is released. The identification process and swap are expected to take 10 to 14 days, Israeli media reported.

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