Lebanese President Michel Aoun said on Thursday that his country was using "diplomatic means" to counter Israels stance regarding an offshore energy block that is disputed in part with Israel. On Wednesday Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman described as "very provocative" Lebanons offshore oil and gas exploration tender on the countries maritime border and suggested that Lebanon had put out a tender to international groups for a gas field known as Block 9 "which is by all accounts ours." “We should be aware to what the Israeli enemy is plotting,” Aoun told his visitors, according to a statement issued by Baabda Palace. "Comments by Lieberman about Block 9 are a threat to Lebanon and its right to sovereignty over its territorial waters," the president said on Wednesday. Prime Minister Saad Hariri also described as “invalid" Lieberman’s claims that Block 9 is Israeli. It “comes within Israel’s expansionist policies to undermine the rights of others and threaten regional security,” Hariri said. Lebanon last year approved the licenses for an international consortium led by Frances Total, Italys ENI and Russias Novatek to move forward with offshore oil and gas development for two of five blocks in the Mediterranean Sea, including Block 9. Lebanese officials say the country will start exploratory offshore drilling in 2019 and say Lebanon wants to assert its resource rights along the length of its maritime territories.