Hezbollah spokesman Mohammad Afif was killed Sunday in a rare Israeli airstrike targeting the center of the capital Beirut, outside Hezbollah's traditional strongholds of Dahieh, the South and the Bekaa, Lebanese and Arab TV networks and security sources said.

The strike -- in the Ras al-Nabaa area near Sodeco Square -- targeted a building containing the headquarters of the Lebanese branch of the Baath Party that rules Syria. A Baath member who survived the strike said the building also contained an apartment housing displaced Lebanese.