BEIRUT: Lebanon said Sunday it would file a complaint with the United Nations against Israel, after the Jewish state approved a map of its proposed maritime borders, which Lebanon is calling an aggression and an infringement on its right to an exclusive economic zone.

“For sure we will [file a complaint]. This is an aggression on our gas and oil rights and we will not remain silent,” Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour told The Daily Star by telephone. “This is a de facto policy that will not bring peace for Israel. Israel is creating a new area of tension,” he added.

Israel will submit the map, which was approved by its Cabinet Sunday, to the U.N. for an opinion, as the neighboring states face off over offshore gas fields.

The Israeli map lays out maritime borders that conflict significantly with those proposed by Lebanon in its own submission to the U.N. last summer.

“The Cabinet today approved the draft of the northern maritime border of Israel,” said a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.“This line demarcates the area of the state’s economic rights, including the exploitation of natural resources.”

Mansour said that the borders drawn by Israel constituted an aggression against Lebanon’s economic borders.

“When there is an economic zone linked to a number of states, demarcating borders does not happen by one state unilaterally or by two states at the expense of the third,” he said.

At the cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said that “the outline that Lebanon submitted to the U.N. is significantly further south than the one we proposed.”

“It [Lebanon’s map] also conflicts with the line that we have agreed upon with Cyprus and, what is more significant in my eyes, it conflicts with the line that Lebanon itself agreed upon with Cyprus in 2007.”

“Our goal is to determine Israel’s position regarding its maritime border, in keeping with the principles of international maritime law,” Netanyahu said.

Mansour said that Israel’s demarcation of its maritime borders with Cyprus had infringed on Lebanon’s right to its economic zone. “This contradicts international law.”

Israel has been moving to develop several large offshore natural gas fields in the Mediterranean that it hopes could help it to become an energy exporter.

But its development plans have stirred controversy with Lebanon, which argues the gas fields lie inside its territorial waters. Israel does not have officially demarcated maritime borders with Lebanon, and the two nations remain technically at war.

Lebanon’s Energy and Water Resources Minister Jibran Bassil assured the Lebanese that the country’s natural resources were “not in danger.”

“We are determined to defend them, especially since we are fully committed to the law of the sea. If Israel violates this law, it will pay the price,” he told The Daily Star.

Bassil said that Lebanon had given its maritime maps to the U.N. and the “U.N. should behave in line with law.”

The minister said that he would call for placing the issue first on the agenda of the Cabinet session scheduled for this week.

“We will take the suitable measures, like launching a diplomatic and political campaign [to defend our right],” he said.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel was convinced it would win support for its position at the U.N.

“We will soon be presenting the United Nations headquarters in New York with our position on our maritime borders,” Lieberman told Israeli public radio.

“We have already concluded an agreement on this issue with Cyprus. Lebanon, under pressure from Hezbollah, is looking for friction, but we will not give up any part of what is rightfully ours,” he added.

The two biggest known offshore fields, Tamar and Leviathan, lie off Israel’s northern city of Haifa.

International energy experts have said that Leviathan field might be straddling Lebanon’s maritime border with Israel.

Tamar is believed to hold at least 238 billion cubic meters, while Leviathan is believed to have reserves of 450 billion cubic meters.

In recent weeks, an Israeli company has also announced the discovery of two new natural gas fields, Sarah and Mira, they lie around 70 kilometers off the city of Hadera further south.