Why did Mattathias and his sons flee into the Judaean hills?

Mattathias and his sons fled into the Judaean hills to escape and organize resistance against the oppressive policies of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes.12

The conflict reached a breaking point in 167 BCE when Antiochus enforced a policy to extirpate the Jewish religion by forbidding traditional rites, such as circumcision and the observance of the Sabbath, under penalty of death. The situation escalated when an altar to Zeus was erected in the Temple in Jerusalem, an act of desecration known as the "abomination of desolation".23

Mattathias, a priest from the village of Modein, sparked the open revolt by killing a royal officer and a fellow Jew who was preparing to offer a sacrifice to pagan gods. Following this act of defiance, he and his family retreated to the hills to initiate a guerrilla war against the Syrian forces and those who collaborated with them.13