Mysterious 1,097 Messages in iCloud, can't get rid of them

About six months ago, I temporarily ran out of iCloud storage and may have disabled "Messages in iCloud" temporarily (can't remember?).

Ever since then, I've had an issue with not being able to download old message attachments. It tells me "download from iCloud," but when I tap, nothing happens. Also since then, I've had 1,097 mysterious messages stuck in iCloud that won't download to my phone.

More than a month ago, I decided to start from scratch, deleted all my messages, deleted them from "recently deleted," and disabled "Messages in iCloud." I just enabled the "Messages in iCloud" and it is still showing that I have 1,097 messages in iCloud. It started syncing, but it's just downloading messages that I had previously deleted/deleted from "recently deleted." Also, the syncing keeps pausing even though I have sufficient iCloud storage, I have Wifi, full battery, am connected to a charger, and not using my phone for anything else.

I just want these mysterious 1,097 messages to disappear so I can use Messages in iCloud again.

I have my Apple ID also on an iPad, but iMessages is disabled, "Sync this iPad" is disabled for Messages under iCloud settings, and iCloud Backup is also disabled.