An Israeli government spokesman says the Cabinet has overwhelming approved a prisoner swap with Hezbollah.

The hotly debated deal would release a convicted Lebanese child-killer and four Hezbollah guerrillas in exchange for two missing Israeli soldiers or their bodies.

The exchange, which also includes the bodies of 199 Hezbollah and Palestinian fighters, is expected to be carried out by the Red Cross at the Israeli-Lebanese border on Wednesday.

Government spokesman David Baker says only three of the 25 cabinet ministers present at Tuesday’s meeting voted against the deal.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

JERUSALEM (AP) _ Israel’s Cabinet began final deliberations Tuesday on whether to trade a Lebanese militant convicted of killing three people for two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah guerrillas and believed to be dead.

The exchange is expected to be approved despite Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s pronouncement on Monday that Hezbollah has submitted an “absolutely unsatisfactory” report on what happened to an Israeli airman who disappeared in Lebanon 22 years ago.

Israel had demanded the report as part of the exchange deal, but government officials have said it would not be a deal-breaker.

Ahead of the meeting, Construction Minister Zeev Boim said he would vote against the deal because he opposed trading live prisoners for dead soldiers, but estimated that a majority of the Cabinet would back it.

A U.N.-appointed German official mediated the agreement, which the Cabinet originally approved June 29. Final authorization was put off until Israel received the document on missing airman Ron Arad.

Over the weekend, Hezbollah transferred photographs, diary excerpts and an 80-page report that claimed Arad died, but did not give a full account of his fate.

In October 1986, Arad, then 28, parachuted out of his malfunctioning fighter jet on a mission over Lebanon. A Lebanese militant group captured him, but reports that he was later transferred to Hezbollah fighters and then to Iran have never been confirmed.

The prisoner swap is expected to take place Wednesday at a seafront border crossing, under the auspices of the Red Cross.

In addition to handing over convicted killer Samir Kantar, Israel has also agreed to release four other Lebanese prisoners and the bodies of 199 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters killed in clashes over the years.

In exchange, Hezbollah is to return the two Israeli soldiers, whose capture set off a monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah in the summer of 2006.

Hezbollah has given no evidence that Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev are alive, and has not allowed the Red Cross to see them since their capture. It has not confirmed they are dead, but forensic examination of the spot where they were captured indicated they were seriously wounded, and Olmert said last month that Israel thinks the men did not survive.

The Lebanese prisoners will not be handed over until the soldiers are positively identified, either at the crossing or in Jerusalem, if DNA testing is deemed necessary.

Kantar is serving multiple life terms for killing an Israeli policeman, a civilian and his 4-year-old daughter in northern Israeli. The child’s terrified mother accidentally smothered her 2-year-old daughter in a desperate effort to keep her from crying out while they hid in a crawl space in their apartment.

Red Cross officials are to meet with Kantar and the other Lebanese prisoners on Tuesday.