Update gradle to 9.6.1 with script updates #1815

Job	Run time
Build and run dev examples on ubuntu-latest	3m 43s
Build and run dev examples on macos-latest	5m 14s
Build and run release examples on ubuntu-latest	48s
Build and run release examples on windows-latest	1m 8s
Build and run release examples on macos-latest	1m 0s
Build and run dev examples on windows-latest	6m 33s
	18m 26s

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