Tel Aviv  - A deal on a prisoners exchange between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah is near, a relative confirmed Monday.

"We had a meeting with (Israeli negotiator) Ofer Dekel. He informed us of ... not of the real precise details, but he told us generally that a deal was about to be carried out," said Zvi Regev, the father of Eldad Regev, one of two Israeli soldiers held captive by Hezbollah.

Regev's comment comes after the family of Samir Kuntar, the longest-held Lebanese prisoner in an Israeli jail, said Saturday they were optimistic that his release was imminent.

A Lebanese security source also told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that an exchange might take place between Friday and Wednesday next week.

Israel and Hezbollah have been holding indirect negotiations on a prisoners swap via a German mediator for nearly two years, since shortly after their 33-day war of the summer of 2006.

That war erupted after Hezbollah militants captured Regev and a second soldier, Ehud Goldwasser, and killed several other Israeli soldiers in a July 2006 cross-border raid from Lebanon into northern Israel.

Kuntar, for his part, has been held in Israel since he led an April 1979 attack on the northern Israeli town of Nahariya. Kuntar and three other men of the Palestine Liberation Front had infiltrated the town from Lebanon by boat.

In addition to two Israeli policemen, they killed a father and his four-year-old daughter after taking them hostage from their Nahariya home. The family's mother had inadvertantly smothered her other, two- year-old daughter to death while trying to keep her quiet as they were hiding from the hostage takers.

An Israeli court sentenced Kuntar to more than 500 years in prison. Israel had thus far refused to include him in past prisoners with Hezbollah, demanding updating, credible information about the fate of Israeli Air Force navigator Ron Arad, who went missing after being shot down over Lebanon in 1986. Israeli media, however, have now reported that the Israeli government has reached the conclusion that Hezbollah has no information on Arad.

Zvi Regev told Israel Radio Monday that he was given no details of the pending deal, nor about the condition of his missing son. An Israeli military investigation assumed both Regev and Goldwasser were severely injured in the July 2006 cross-border raid in which they were captured. German mediator Gerhard Konrad is also said to believe that the two are no longer alive.

"We're aware of the worst of all, but we're still hoping for good news," Zvi Regev said.

Israel holds about six Lebanese prisoners, including Kuntar and three Hezbollah fighters captured during the 2006 war. They also hold bodies of Hezbollah fighters who died in the war in 2006. (dpa)