Then I suggest keeping those translation files there (in Git) but in separate branch. That way if someone with commit rights would push them from time to time we'll have kind of backup (does Transifex provide such a service already?), but they won't get tampered with tools.
I do not understand git very well either, but I think that this should be done as follows:
Assume you're working on "stuff" (which could be either "tools" string or "src" string).
Then to change things do:
1) git pull
2) git checkout "stuff"
3) work on "stuff"
4) git commit
5) git push
If we go this way I do not volunteer to make the changes to the repo - I'm complete git noob and don't want to ruin things
ixtab, I can add a switch to make this produce old output (no fancy comments) while still sorted.