Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has won his cabinet's approval for a prisoner swap with Hezbollah under which two soldiers held by the Lebanese group, and believed to be dead, would be recovered.
The seizure of army reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in a July 2006 border ambush triggered a month-long war in Lebanon, with Mr Olmert ruling out talks on their return. He then relented, negotiating through a UN-appointed German mediator.
Mr Olmert told government ministers before that Israel believed the two soldiers did not survive their capture.
An official Israeli statement said that in the exchange, Israel would release five Lebanese gunmen and at a later stage an undisclosed number of Palestinian prisoners.
Dozens of bodies of slain infiltrators and the remains of eight Hezbollah men killed in the 2006 war would also be handed over.
Topping the list of those to be released by Israel is Samir Qantar, who is serving a life sentence for a 1979 raid on the northern Israeli coastal town of Nahariya.
