Updated

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday in an exclusive interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity that the battle against Islamic militants “will soon come to a theater near you and it has to be stopped now.”

Netanyahu spoke out as his country is engaged in a temporary cease-fire in its conflict with militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The month-long war has killed nearly 1,900 Palestinians and 67 Israelis, including three civilians.

Netanyahu told Hannity that the threat from Islamic militants is real, and will spread to other countries if the terrorists are not stopped.

“This is a danger I’ve been pointing to, it’s not a spin, it’s not a whim, it is a clinical diagnosis of a pathological movement that is sweeping our area but will soon come to a theater near you and it has to be stopped now,” he said.

Netanyahu said “this great battle” is heightened by the fact that the militants are under Iran’s “nuclear umbrella.”

“If in this great malaise, this great confrontation, this great battle, one of these militants, in this case the Shiite militants backed by Iran, sponsored by Iran, if they have an Iranian nuclear umbrella, if Iran itself can intimidate the U.S. with intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads, then we bring history into a different threshold altogether,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report