Days after a court in Egypt declared Hamas a terrorist organization, one of its leaders on Monday issued a threat against Cairo.

The leader, Salah Bardawil, declared that Hamas will not allow the Egyptian regime to touch the Palestinian people and will react to any aggression in the same way it reacts to Israel.

“Hamas will not allow the Egyptian regime to assault the Gaza Strip and it will resist against it like it resists against Israel,” he was quoted by the Alresalah newspaper as saying.

Bardawil warned that Hamas “will not be subject to the mercy of the Egyptian judges or politicians” and added, “Gaza is not like Libya, and those threatening us will lose their people and nation.”

Saturday’s ruling in Egypt was directed at Hamas’s political wing, and it comes after Hamas’s “military wing”, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, was designated as a terrorist organization by Egypt at the beginning of February.

Hamas has been the subject of a crackdown by Egyptian authorities ever since the military ousted former Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

The military-led government that ousted Morsi has cracked down on Hamas, which it accuses of an attack on Egyptian police headquarters, and of planning church bombings in Sinai.

Most recently, Egypt accused Hamas of providing the weapons used by terrorists for two lethal attacks in El-Arish in October, in which dozens of soldiers were killed.