Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah group are to exchange prisoners tomorrow, raising hopes that an Israeli airman captured in 1986 could be freed.

Under the deal brokered by the UN and approved overwhelmingly by the Israeli cabinet, Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev will be exchanged for five Lebanese prisoners, including Samir Qantar  -  jailed for life for killing an Israeli policeman, another man and his four-year-old daughter in a raid on northern Israel in 1979.

Hezbollah has given no word on the condition of the two Israeli soldiers, although they are widely assumed to be dead. They were captured in a crossborder Hezbollah raid that led to a war between the Iranian-backed group and Israel in 2006.

Mystery: Ron Arad, an Israeli air force navigator who was captured after his fighter jet crashed in Lebanon in 1986

Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert had described Qantar as the last bargaining chip for word on the fate of Israeli airman Ron Arad, the country's most famous missing serviceman.

Arad disappeared after baling out during a bombing run over Lebanon in 1986, and was captured by a different Lebanese group, Amal.

His fate has gripped Israel ever since and become one of the great mysteries of the past generation, although it is far from clear that he is alive after 22 years in captivity. 

Almost every Israeli knows the air force navigator's story. Arad was forced to parachute out of his Phantom fighter jet after one of the aircraft's bombs apparently malfunctioned. Israeli forces rescued the jet's pilot, but Arad was seized by guerrillas from Amal, a Shia organisation.

Since his capture, a letter from the airman was once delivered to his family, and a videotaped message he recorded in the late Eighties was released several years ago. But he has not been heard from since.

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Missing: Israeli reserve soldiers Ehud Goldwasser, right, and Eldad Regev, whose capture by Hezbollah triggered the 34-day war with the Iranian-backed group two years ago

Hopes that Hezbollah would release information about Arad rose this week when the militant Lebanese guerrilla group transferred photographs, letters, diary excerpts and an 80-page report to Israel as part of the prisoner swap, due to take place tomorrow.

The images showed a bewilderedlooking-Arad with an injured arm held close to his body, a beard and Arabic writing on a wall in the background.

The letters were addressed to Arad's wife Tami and spoke of his love for her and their infant daughter Yuval.

Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak said that the Hezbollah dossier failed to give a definitive answer on Arad's fate.

The defence ministry said in a statement: "The report on Ron Arad, as passed by Hezbollah, does not give a clear answer on the fate of Ron Arad and does not resolve the issue. We are compelled to continue to work to discover what happened to him."

Eitan Haber, a close aide to the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, wrote in an Israeli newspaper: "Twenty years, perhaps more, have passed since an anonymous photographer clicked the camera button and captured the image of Ron Arad that we see today: thin, sad, bearded, with hollow eyes. Perhaps, perhaps something in the background will disclose his location in Lebanon?"

An Israeli prisons service spokesman declined to say where tomorrow's swap would take place. Previous exchanges have taken place at the Naqoura border crossing on the Mediterranean coast.

As part of the deal, negotiated by a German intelligence officer, Israel will hand over the bodies of 200 Arabs killed while infiltrating northern Israel. Hezbollah will return the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in south Lebanon in 2006.