What is this part? Suspension

Hey sorry no time to search big snowstorm about to hit. 2012 Prius 280k miles. My daughter ran over a curb and the Prius sounds like shit. Loud low pitched creaks coming from driver side wheel well whenever the suspension is under load. This is shortly after paying to replace front and rear struts and shocks :-(. I don’t have capability to really lift the car up and just do oil brakes cvt plugs egr etc.

attached is a photo of the only thing I can see that is obviously f@caked up… the rubber between these two metal arms is destroyed and looks like it’s leaking out puss.

Anyone know what that piece of rubber is called so I can get me a new one?
Do I need to worry about the strut / spring tension? Can I just replace it with the car down on the ground? Do I put it in my jack stands? I’m pretty uninformed but have the tools and some time off and am trying to knock this out before we get dumped on again, because my 09 forester is out of commission :-(

Thanks in advance everyone !!!

 

Once again Prius chat is the best. Did u hear any creaking before replacing your sway bar links?

 

Thanks Danny boy . I’m gonna buy the trq sway bar links from 1a for $45. I reckon I may as well do both driver and passenger side. I really hope it makes this awful sound go away.

Btw I’m rolling on very cheap TRQ front and rear struts and shocks. The whole set was $150 and I expected it to totally suck, but it actually felt great. Down in town I’m a hyper miler but up in the mountains where I live I drive my Prius very fast, and I liked the “stiffness” of the cheap TRQs versus my bouncy old OEM ones that had 250k miles on them.
Then my daughter drove over a curb and this sound started. Still feels ok when driving, except when I hit a very sharp turn going way too fast and the traction control light comes on. It never used to..I’ve put 15,000 miles on it like this…hope nothing is long term messed up and these new sway bar links will hopefully solve my issues. I’ll update thx again

 

I’ve got car up on a jack. Busted loose the 17mm bolts, and the sway bar link doesn’t wanna come out. Again, this is after violent trauma, albeit rather minor when my daughter drove over a curb. Seems like I can hammer out the old one? What are y’all’s thoughts?
As far as the strut… yeah it’s new, not used. No boot and I live in a dusty climate so it’s pretty dirty. It could also be leaking and have sustained damage when the sway bar link was damaged. I’m not doing both bc the other one seems ok for now. My plan is to take my ride down to Hybrid PitStop and have them do new oem monroe once I roll over 300k miles, which will be within the year.
So yeah should I hammer out this damaged sway bar link?