Hassan Hijazi, who is of Palestinian descent, told reporters he spent a full day on the run, making his way some 200 kilometers from the Golan Heights to a Tel Aviv neighborhood before surrendering to police late Monday. He was scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday.

Hijazi, 28, was among dozens of Arabs — mostly of Palestinian descent — who broke through a fence along Syria’s frontier with the Israeli-controlled Golan on Sunday to mourn the anniversary of the establishment of the Jewish state on May 15, 1948.

“It was my dream to reach Jaffa,” the Syrian Education Ministry official told Channel 10 TV before his surrender.

Hijazi said his parents lived in the port city, which since has been annexed by Tel Aviv, before being displaced during Israel’s war of independence.

The Palestinian mourning ritual on the date the Jewish state was declared drew an unprecedented wave of protests this year in Syria and Lebanon, home to large Palestinian refugee populations. Fifteen people were killed in clashes with Israeli forces.

In all, four people who crossed into Israel from Syria, including Hijazi, were detained. The Israeli military said two were returned to Syria on Tuesday morning. It was not immediately known what happened to the fourth person.

The border breach was more a symbolic achievement against Israel than a victory, Hijazi said.

“The real thing will happen between armies,” he said.