Singer Dana International yesterday filed a NIS 100,000 lawsuit against Bezeq International and an advertising firm for allegedly using her personality and character traits without her permission in television commercials and billboar d advertisements. By Assaf Bergerfreund – Ha'aretz Correspondent.

The suit also seeks a restraining order against the telecommunications company and advertising firm of Adler Chomsky & Rishovsky to prevent continued use of the allegedly unauthorized advertisements.

Dana International's lawsuit claims that in January 2001 she was approached about appearing in Bezeq ads, but negotiations were suspended after she demanded payment of $15,000 for a photo shoot of a day and a half.

Despite the lack of an agreement, the Dana petition alleges, Bezeq International on March 21 launched an advertising campaign, using Dana International's icon - a singing cat - with a figure that looked like the singer, imitated her voice and sang, "There are Girls," a song associated with the pop singer.

Dana claims that the advertisement includes phrases associated with the singer and that echo advertisements for the Eurovision Song Contest, which Dana International won as Israel's representative several years ago.

Dana said she was demanding compensation for alleged violation of her rights, and asked the court to order Bezeq International to cease using the ads and to force the company to hand over all profits it has made as a result of the campaign.

Israel’s international is going to release a new album in Hebrew. Most of the songs were written by the group Click, and there is a special donation from [Yehuda] Poliker [one of the most respected mainstream artists in Israel – ZG].

4 years after Maganona, her last studio album, was released, and 3 years after her winning in the Eurovision Song contest with Diva, Dana International has returned to singing in Hebrew. 'Láma katávta li shir?' (Why did you write me a song?), which will be released next week to radio stations, is the first song from 'Yotér we-yotér' (More and more) the new long-awaited Israeli album by the singer.

"I'm so proud of my album" says Dana. "It's the first time I'm truly proud of my work. I worked with a great team, and we invested so many hours of work in every second of it."

The new album includes 11 songs, mostly written by Dani Dotan and Eli Avramov. The relationship between the three started during the 'Next festival,' where Dana sang 'Sex acher' with ‘Eran Tzur. Avramov also wrote '‘Ad sof ha-zman' (Till the end of time] for her, which was included in the Israeli edition of 'Free' – her international album.

Dotan: "My connection with Dana is mysterious. It's very rare, I could feel her."

Dana: "It's the first time I'm working with a team that wrote everything for me. It's a little bit frustrating, but very refreshing. Dani didn't just write some words. We sat down for days on end. I feel like I used him. Made me with his words. And Eli, he is a genius!"

She has a few words to say about her new single 'Láma katávta li shir?': “It's one of the two ballads included on my album, and we chose this one to show that I am not only a singer of happy songs. It's a very quiet and mature song, very mysterious. The second ballad was written by Yoav Ginai and Yehuda Poliker. For so many years I have wanted him to write for me. We were in shock when he said yes. I'm very proud of that song. He didn’t just agree to write, he came to the studio and played and made some vocals to the song. To be close to Poliker in that way, it's a gift I can't describe. He gave me such a wonderful song."