A young Palestinian shepherd smokes a cigaret near Mehora settlement in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley, along the border with Jordan, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2014. A senior Israeli Cabinet minister and more than a dozen hawkish legislators poured cement at a construction site in a settlement in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley on Thursday, in what they said was a message to visiting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that Israel will never relinquish the strategic area. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)