The United Nations agency, UNRWA, said the employee was "shot and killed on the roof of his home by a sniper", and that it was "the first time an UNRWA staff member has been killed in the West Bank in more than 10 years".

But he is among dozens of Palestinians killed during the large-scale Israeli operation which began days ago and is ongoing, with several more Palestinians dead since Wednesday.

UNRWA identified the employee as Sufyan Jaber Abed Jawwad, who "worked as a sanitation labourer" in Faraa refugee camp and "is survived by his wife and five children".

A military spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, said troops opened fire on the UN worker during a raid in Faraa claiming he "posed a threat" to forces.

It was later "discovered he is also an UNRWA employee," Shoshani said.

Jawwad’s death adds to the toll of six other UNRWA staffers killed on Wednesday in an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in the Gaza Strip. The incident represents the highest single-incident death toll for the agency, which employs over 30,000 people in the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip, and elsewhere.

Mourners on Friday carried Jawwad's body through the streets of Faraa, with his blue UN vest resting atop the Palestinian flag that covered him.

In nearby Tubas, funerals also took place for other Palestinians, who were killed by an Israeli air strike.

A military statement on Friday said Israeli forces had conducted a 48-hour operation in Tubas, Tamun, and Faraa, northeast of Nablus, in which an airstrike killed "five armed terrorists," without providing further details or evidence.

Violence against Palestinians in the West Bank had already soared alongside the nearly 12-month-old Israeli assault on Gaza but in late August Israel began its large-scale raids.

Major Israeli raids in the West Bank are sometimes occurring "at a scale not witnessed in the last two decades," the United Nations human rights chief said this week.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said the Israeli military withdrew from Tubas on Thursday evening, allowing the funerals there to go ahead, after the Israeli air strike which killed the Palestinian Red Crescent said killed the men on Wednesday.

"I woke up in the morning to the sound of an explosion," Ahmed Sawafta, father of one of the dead men, told AFP.

Osaid Kharaz, who identified himself as a Hamas activist, told AFP at the funeral in Tubas that Israel "is attempting to impose a new reality and undermine the popular support for the resistance (to Israeli occupation) in the West Bank."

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and has ramped up deadly raids in the territory since Israel's war on Gaza began in October.

According to the Palestinian health ministry, at least 679 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by the Israeli military or settlers since October 7.

At least 24 Israelis, including security forces, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the territory during the same period, according to Israeli officials.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.