[v2.9] Bump gke-operator to v1.9.6-rc.1

[mjura]

Issue:

Problem

Solution

Testing

Engineering Testing

Manual Testing

Automated Testing

QA Testing Considerations

Regressions Considerations

Backporting considerations

[github-actions]

Validation steps

• Ensure all container images have repository and tag on the same level to ensure that all container images are included in rancher-images.txt which are used by airgap customers.

  Ex:-
    longhorn-controller:
      repository: rancher/hardened-sriov-cni
      tag: v2.6.3-build20230913
  

• Add a 👍 (thumbs up) reaction to this comment once done. CI won't pass without this reaction to the github-action bot's latest validation comment.
• Approve the PR to run the CI check.

[github-actions]

Validation steps

• Ensure all container images have repository and tag on the same level to ensure that all container images are included in rancher-images.txt which are used by airgap customers.

  Ex:-
    longhorn-controller:
      repository: rancher/hardened-sriov-cni
      tag: v2.6.3-build20230913
  

• Add a 👍 (thumbs up) reaction to this comment once done. CI won't pass without this reaction to the github-action bot's latest validation comment.
• Approve the PR to run the CI check.