Ground truth versus bubble truth

In my many years of military service, I was consciously aware of the concept of “ground truth” – the actual and verifiable facts on the ground in the battlespace, as compared to assumptions and reporting relied on in operational planning. Having spent time in various roles in Canberra, I’ve been confronted with what I term “bubble truth” – unreliable or plainly false information pitched as facts from within the Canberra bubble. Disappointingly, this bubble truth increasingly comes from the public service. Whether these bureaucrats are merely conveying the messaging expected by their political masters, or they genuinely believe the manifestly false information is correct, is largely irrelevant – the public deserves better.
Which brings me to the latest manifestation of bubble truth. On 6th August 2025, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) delivered a briefing on the Middle East conflict. The briefing opened with a statement by a ministerial Chief of Staff that, ‘this has been a busy and distressing time’. That pretty much set the tone for the briefing that was to follow, which was little more than a good old-fashioned Israel bashing – inclusive of blatant bias, falsities, and unsupported emotive opinion pitched as fact.

So, let us break this briefing down into a bubble truth versus ground truth comparison, statement by statement.

Bubble truth:

‘Israel is allowing some aid in, but not enough’.

Ground truth:

‘There is enough food in the region or en route to feed the entire Gaza population of 2.1 million people for at least 3 months … but most is looted before reaching warehouses’ (UN-affiliated Food Security Cluster, 6thAugust 2025).

‘More than 90% [of the food items] was looted by armed gangs along aid convoy routes’ (UN-affiliated Food Security Cluster, 6th August 2025).
‘The majority of aid is looted before reaching the distribution points’ (Qatari media, August 2025).

‘Humanitarian agencies have been struggling to deliver aid safely due to the presence of armed actors near convoy routes and distribution points’ (UN-affiliated Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), 29thJuly 2025).

‘The UN agencies have struggled to deliver aid in Gaza, with nearly all of their aid convoys being looted and/or otherwise confiscated … the underlying problem for the UN and partnering humanitarian groups is not access [to aid], it’s operational failure’ (Gaza Humanitarian Fund, 23rd July 2025).

Bubble truth:

‘The humanitarian situation is obviously catastrophic. 200 trucks per day are getting in but 500 per day are needed’. And, conveniently, ‘Australia does not support airdrops [of aid] … they have half the cargo of one truck’.

Ground truth:

The UN uses a system – UN2720 Monitoring & Tracking Dashboard – to monitor every aid truck in Gaza in real time using QR codes. According to that system, between 19th May and 2nd August, about 40 000 tons of aid were unloaded, but only about 4 100 tons (≈ 10%) reached its destination. The rest of the aid was designated by the UN as “Intercepted”. Intercepted is UN-speak for looted by gangs or confiscated by Hamas.

That monitoring system records that, since 1st August, between 280 and 320 trucks of aid have crossed into Gaza per day. On top of this, from the beginning of the airdrop operation on 27th July until the DFAT briefing on 6th August, more than 1000 aid packages had been delivered by air by nine different countries. Each sortie by each aircraft ‘parachutes 12 pallets of food, weighing about 11 tonnes in total, into Gaza – 11 tonnes is equivalent to one truck full of food’ (ABC News, 29th July 2025). That is twice the amount stated as fact by the DFAT bureaucrat in her bubble truth presentation.

Australia is, of course, not one of those countries delivering aid because, as stated by this DFAT official, Australia does not support airdrops of aid into Gaza.

Bubble truth:

‘The famine thresholds are very clearly met’.

Ground truth:

That categorical statement of fact is inconsistent with analysis by UN-affiliated organisations and is not reflective of the application of any recognised thresholds for the declaration of famine. No declarations of famine have been made, and no expert analysis has allowed for such declarations. The IPC, in its report of 13th August 2025 (admittedly post-dating the 6th August DFAT briefing), describes various levels of food insecurity across Gaza but does not state that any parts of Gaza are in famine. In its 12th May report, the IPC describes a “risk of famine” and uses the term “facing famine”. The IPC defines “risk of famine” as ‘not perceived necessarily as the most-likely scenario’ and as ‘providing insights into potential famine if prospects evolve in a worse manner than anticipated’ (IPC, 29th July 2025).

All references to actual famine by the IPC are in the context of future scenario projections, none of which have manifest and all of which have ‘failed to predict the reality on the ground’ (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), 13th August 2025).

Bubble truth:

A valid question was asked at the 6th August DFAT briefing as to whether Hamas is fighting or is it just one-sided attacks by Israel. The response avoided the question entirely but rather, stated, it cannot be ‘war at any cost’, before launching into poorly informed banter about “proportionality”.

Ground truth:

The lack of any semblance of a direct answer to the question was, itself, deceptive. Such response does little more than serve to amplify the Prime Minister’s misrepresentation of the principle of proportionality in his ABC interview of 27th July.

In light of my background and current professional and academic activities, I know a thing or two about proportionality in military targeting. But that’s for another time. For the moment, the senior DFAT staffers might benefit from the following ground truths:

Hamas started this war on 7th October 2023. Hamas continues to hold Israeli hostages in conditions of extreme deprivation and violence. Hamas is waging this war in the most complex battlespace on the planet. Hamas is hiding in and operating from civilian infrastructure, including locations subject to special protections such as hospitals. Hamas is hiding behind and fighting from amongst civilians. Hamas is intentionally exposing civilians to risk for its own strategic and propaganda purposes. Hamas has violated operational pauses, designed to help facilitate the distribution of aid, resulting in the deaths of IDF soldiers.

At the end of the day, words and the truth matter. There is no less important place for the discerning use of terminology and the honest portrayal of facts and evidence than in a mechanism of government from which our international relations are managed. For our senior public servants and their political masters to do otherwise is to fail Australians both domestically and abroad. We deserve the ground truth.

Dr Glenn Kolomeitz is an international law consultant and defence analyst. He lectures at various universities in international law and intelligence studies.