I had a close look at the signs being held by protestors at Columbia as displayed on a news clip, and what surprised me the most was how few of them advocated for any sort of sensible compassionate action.

There are lots and lots of slogans that fit nicely on a sign and express grave concern for Palestinian civilians. I can understand if the news crew thought the more extreme signs made for better footage, but if there were a lot of reasonable, compassionate signs they wouldn't have been able to avoid getting them in view too.

Edit: the most broadly compassionate signs I spotted were Free all Palestinian political prisoners and Ceasefire Now! Let Gaza live!, which are both positions worth discussing. The most hateful signs I spotted were By any means necessary and Defeat U.S./Israel genocidal war on Palestinians, both of which are difficult to interpret in any way but unmitigated support for violence. Most sounded sorta good if you thought about it for 0.25 seconds but were problematic if you thought about it for 1.25 seconds (e.g. Free all Palestinian prisoners involves releasing people who killed Israeli civilians and intend to do so again if given a chance; Free Palestine in the context of an anti-Israel demonstration, as if Hamas isn’t keeping Gaza very un-free, the usual exaggeration of ‘apartheid’ and ‘genocide’ which motivates extreme rather than measured responses, etc.).

Another edit: I did not see signs saying any of these things: What about “End Hunger in Gaza”; “Preserve Civilian Infrastructure”; “Bring All Murderers Before a Court of Justice”; “You Break It, You Fix it, Israel!”; “Peace, Freedom, Democracy for Gaza!”; “End the Suffering of Innocents in Gaza!”; “No More Bombing In Civilian Areas!”. I’m sure you can think of more. These may not all be practical, but they do all clearly have compassion or justice as a primary motivation.