I started running three years ago and looked into this quite a bit as I had plantar fasciitis for about 6 months this past summer. My conclusion was that there's no good evidence that foot strike matters in itself. Mostly everyone agrees that "overstriding" [1] is an issue but there's also no evidence for that. Also, not all heel strikers are driving their feet brutally into the ground. For distance running, most people naturally take quick, light steps and don't come down hard (the opposite of sprinting).
Here is a study showing that, among a pool of elite distance runners, most are heel strikers: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31147098/
Here is a meta analysis arguing that there is no evidence that forefoot striking is superior: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-019-01238-y
Here is a paper arguing against the arguments for forefoot striking: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC6189005/
The heel strike vs. forefoot strike debate is not driven by evidence. Proponents of forefoot strike are making an argument from naturalness (some say that people run on forefeet without shoes, though this is disputed and may depend on the surface) and that, intuitively, landing on your forefoot seems like it would do less damage. Those arguments may be right but there's no solid evidence for them.
[1] https://news.sanfordhealth.org/orthopedics/over-striding/#:~....
