Trying to clear reading list freezes Safari

I have Safari 18.5 after the latest update on an M4 MacBook, but I want to clear the reading list items I have, which were imported from my old one. Unfortunately, it's about 10,000 items, if I have to guess, and trying "clear all items" simply sends the browser in to "not responding" and the spinning beach ball icon, and I have to force quit every time. is there anything that can be done to fix this, or is it possibly a bug?