A Kapi'olani Community College economics professor is stranded in a small village in Lebanon, within earshot of rocket attacks, unable to drive the 60 miles to Beirut lest he be caught in the crossfire.

"We always hear about hotspots and we read about it and we see it when we're having dinner, and now I'm living it. It's different," said Ibrahim Dik, who is staying with family members in Roum, a town of 500 full-time residents whose population has quadrupled with refugees trying to flee Israeli rocket attacks.

"A spy plane is above me right now. It keeps going back and forth all day. The bombing is far away, about 30 miles. After a while, it is closer. Last week, there was a huge explosion 10 miles away. I want to get out of here right now."

Dik is one of thousands of Americans stuck in Lebanon. Thousands more, including a Big Island schoolteacher, have been evacuated.

The U.S. State Department has told Dik it has no immediate plans to try to evacuate Americans from outside Beirut and could not give him any suggestions for how to flee the fighting. He said he has a car with a full tank of gas, but does not want to chance driving on the roads — some of which have been shot up in attacks.

"Some people go and make it," he said. "But it's just too dangerous."

Dik and his wife, Susan, have spent their summers in Lebanon for the past 10 years. Susan Dik, also a professor at Kapi'olani Community College, was with her husband just a week before the bombing started. She flew to Malaysia to finish out a fellowship and is now in Thailand, where she talks with her husband daily.

Maui resident Cindy Schenk, Susan Dik's sister, said she has contacted Hawai'i's congressional delegation in hopes of finding a way to get Dik to safety.

"He really has no choice but to wait there," she said. "I think his village is safe for now. It's not a Hezbollah stronghold. He doesn't feel he's in the direct line of fire."

Schenk said Dik wasn't too concerned when the war started, thinking it would end as soon as the international community got involved.

"It may have been wishful thinking," Schenk said. "As it started escalating and getting worse, he got very concerned about being able to get out."

Dik was born and raised in Lebanon. He said the fighting has crushed the country's progress, as it climbed out of years of war into a new era of reconstruction and hope.

"I have a real sadness," he said. "It's all this destruction. There are people who have lost their homes, their lives."

Dik was scheduled to return to Honolulu on Aug. 11, in time to start the new semester at the University of Hawai'i on Aug. 15. He has informed the university of his situation, but still holds out hope he can make it back in time.

Once Dik does find a way out of Lebanon, he will have to leave brothers, sisters and scores of extended family members behind. He said the goodbye will be especially difficult, but he is hopeful his family will be all right.

Their home in Beirut is near the American Embassy and has not been targeted.

"Can you imagine," Schenk said, "leaving your whole family in a war zone? I feel really devastated. I've been listening to stories about Lebanon ... and how it was finally being rebuilt. Now, it's just all been obliterated."

Reach Mary Vorsino at mvorsino@honoluluadvertiser.com.