OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, November 5 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is to ask his cabinet on Sunday to approve a prisoners of war (PoWs) swap deal with the Lebanese resistance group of Hizbullah, his office said in a statement Wednesday, November 5.

"Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has indicated that he has decided to put forward for the government's approval the question of the freedom of prisoners and kidnap victims in the course of the cabinet meeting next Sunday," read the statement carried by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Hizbullah was said to have held since October 2000 three Israeli soldiers captured in an occupied zone bordering Lebanon, Israel and Syria. The soldiers are now believed to be dead.

Israel said in 2001 that the three soldiers died of wounds sustained in the original attack by Hizbullah along the borders one day earlier. But the resistance group then refused to say whether the soldiers are dead or alive.

Hizbullah also has Elhanan Tanenbaum, a kidnapped businessman and reserve colonel, who Hizbullah says is an Israeli spy.

Israel holds around 20 Lebanese detainees, including Shiite leaders Abdel Karim Obeid and Mustafa Dirani, who were kidnapped by Israel.

Israeli press reports said Israel might hand over 400 Lebanese, Palestinian, Syrian, and Jordanian detainees in exchange for an Israeli businessman and the bodies of the three soldiers.

Germany has been trying to mediate a prisoners exchange deal between the Jewish state and the Lebanese-based resistance group for some weeks.

The reports also said information on the fate of missing Israeli airman Ron Arad, captured when his plane came down over Lebanon in 1986, is also expected to be included in the deal, the BBC NewsOnline said.

But Israeli Education Minister Limor Livnat, who had met with the head of the team who had negotiated the deal in Germany last week, said on Monday that she would find it very difficult to support a PoW exchange deal because of the makeup of the list of those to be released, and because of the lack of information on Arad.

"I am very worried by the fact that there is no additional information on Ron Arad's fate," Levant was quoted by Haaretz as saying.

According to a recent report in Yediot Aharonot, former Iranian diplomats and intelligence officials, currently residing in Europe, said that Arad is alive and is being held in a prison near Tehran.

But the paper admitted it was impossible to verify or refute the testimonies.

Calls for release Arad have been rising among Israelis, amidst calls not to support any prisoner exchange deal that does not include him.

Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah accused Israel last week of wavering in talks over a prisoner exchange.

"The Israelis are hesitating to carry out the prisoner exchange," said, adding that "time is pressing, and that means that we could turn toward a new choice".